into Cimmerian night, with that dull, sustained buzz outside, as of
some gigantic machinery whirling round, which seems a sort of
lullaby, contrived mercifully to make the traveller drowsy and enwrap
him in gentle sleep. Railway sleeping is, after all, a not
unrefreshing form of slumber. There is the grateful 'nod, nod,
nodding,' with the sudden jerk of an awakening; until the nodding
becomes more overpowering, and one settles into a deep and profound
sleep. Ugh! how chilly it gets! And the machinery--or is it the
sea?--still roaring in one's ear.

What, stopping! and by the roadside, it seems; the day breaking, the
atmosphere cold, steel-blue, and misty. Rubbing the pane, a few
surviving lights are seen twinkling--a picture surely something
Moslem. For there, separated by low-lying fields, rise clustered
Byzantine towers and belfries, with strangely-quaint German-looking
spires of the Nuremberg pattern, but all dimly outlined and mysterious
in their grayness.

There was an extraordinary and original feeling in this approach: the
old fortifications, or what remained of them, rising before me; the
gloom, the mystery, the widening streak of day, and perfect
solitariness. As I admired the shadowy belfry which rose so supreme
and asserted itself among the spires, there broke out of a sudden a
perfect _charivari_ of bells--jangling, chiming, rioting, from various
churches, while amid all was conspicuous the deep, solemn BOOM! BOOM!
like the slow baying of a hound.

It is five o'clock, but it might be the middle of the night, so dark
is it. This magic city, which seems like one of those in Albert
Dürer's cuts, rises at a distance as if within walls. I stand in the