captain of the waiters, who gave the act of peeling a sack of potatoes
a playful effect by standing on his head. The poor damsel was going
over and over, to the sound of most dismal drumming and braying,
in front of the immense old palace of the Genoese Doges,--a classic
building, stilted on a rustic base, and quite worthy of Palladio, if
any body thinks that is praise.

There was little left of our day when we had dined; but having seen
the outside of Genoa, and not hoping to see the inside, we found even
this little heavy on our hands, and were glad as the hour drew near
when we were to take the steamer for Naples.

It had been one of the noisiest days spent during several years in
clamorous Italy, whose voiceful uproar strikes to the summits of her
guardian Alps, and greets the coming stranger, and whose loud Addio
would stun him at parting, if he had not meanwhile become habituated
to the operatic pitch of her every-day tones. In Genoa, the hotels,
taking counsel of the vagabond streets, stand about the cavernous
arcade already mentioned, and all the noise of the shipping reaches
their guests. We rose early that Sunday morning to the sound of a
fleet unloading cargoes of wrought-iron, and of the hard swearing of
all nations of seafaring men. The whole day long the tumult followed
us, and seemed to culminate at last in the screams of a parrot, who
thought it fine to cry, "_Piove! piove! piove_!"--"It rains! it
rains! it rains!"--and had, no doubt, a secret interest in some
umbrella-shop. This unprincipled bird dwelt somewhere in the
neighborhood of the street where you see the awful tablet in the wall
devoting to infamy the citizens of the old republic that were false to
their country. The sight of that pitiless stone recalls with a thrill
the picturesque, unhappy past, with all the wandering, half-benighted