traveler used to the rough jaunts in an American wilderness: the inns
were miserable; dirt, noise, and insolence reigned without control.
But it never was our author's habit to stroke the world the wrong way:
"When I cannot get a dinner to suit my taste, I endeavor to get a taste
to suit my dinner." And he adds: "There is nothing I dread more than to
be taken for one of the Smellfungi of this world. I therefore endeavor
to be pleased with everything about me, and with the masters, mistresses,
and servants of the inns, particularly when I perceive they have 'all the
dispositions in the world' to serve me; as Sterne says, 'It is enough for
heaven and ought to be enough for me.'"

The traveler was detained at Marseilles, and five weeks at Nice, on one
or another frivolous pretext of the police, and did not reach Genoa till
the 20th of October. At Genoa there was a delightful society, and Irving
seems to have been more attracted by that than by the historical
curiosities. His health was restored, and his spirits recovered
elasticity in the genial hospitality; he was surrounded by friends to
whom he became so much attached that it was with pain he parted from
them. The gayety of city life, the levees of the Doge, and the balls,
were not unattractive to the handsome young man; but what made Genoa seem
like home to him was his intimacy with a few charming families, among
whom he mentions those of Mrs. Bird, Madame Gabriac, and Lady
Shaftesbury. From the latter he experienced the most cordial and
unreserved friendship; she greatly interested herself in his future,
and furnished him with letters from herself and the nobility to persons
of the first distinction in Florence, Rome, and Naples.

Late in December Irving sailed for Sicily in a Genoese packet. Off the
island of Planoca it was overpowered and captured by a little picaroon,
with lateen sails and a couple of guns, and a most villainous crew,