discharged two people, and had only one passenger inside--a
monstrous ugly Tuscan, with a great purple moustache, of which no
man could see the ends when he had his hat on--I took advantage of
its better accommodation, and in company with this gentleman (who
was very conversational and good-humoured) travelled on, until
nearly eleven o'clock at night, when the driver reported that he
couldn't think of going any farther, and we accordingly made a halt
at a place called Stradella.

The inn was a series of strange galleries surrounding a yard where
our coach, and a waggon or two, and a lot of fowls, and firewood,
were all heaped up together, higgledy-piggledy; so that you didn't
know, and couldn't have taken your oath, which was a fowl and which
was a cart. We followed a sleepy man with a flaring torch, into a
great, cold room, where there were two immensely broad beds, on
what looked like two immensely broad deal dining-tables; another
deal table of similar dimensions in the middle of the bare floor;
four windows; and two chairs. Somebody said it was my room; and I
walked up and down it, for half an hour or so, staring at the
Tuscan, the old priest, the young priest, and the Avvocato (Red-
Nose lived in the town, and had gone home), who sat upon their
beds, and stared at me in return.

The rather dreary whimsicality of this stage of the proceedings, is
interrupted by an announcement from the Brave (he had been cooking)
that supper is ready; and to the priest's chamber (the next room
and the counterpart of mine) we all adjourn. The first dish is a
cabbage, boiled with a great quantity of rice in a tureen full of
water, and flavoured with cheese. It is so hot, and we are so
cold, that it appears almost jolly. The second dish is some little