end to year's end; in short, there is no imagining nor remembering a
hundredth part of the rich details. And even the cathedral (though I
give it up as indescribable) was nothing at all in comparison with a
church to which the commissionaire afterwards led us; a church that had
been built four or five hundred years ago, by a pirate, in expiation of
his sins, and out of the profit of his rapine. This last edifice, in its
interior, absolutely shone with burnished gold, and glowed with pictures;
its walls were a quarry of precious stones, so valuable were the marbles
out of which they were wrought; its columns and pillars were of
inconceivable costliness; its pavement was a mosaic of wonderful beauty,
and there were four twisted pillars made out of stalactites. Perhaps the
best way to form some dim conception of it is to fancy a little
casket, inlaid inside with precious stones, so that there shall not a
hair's-breadth be left unprecious-stoned, and then to conceive this
little bit of a casket iucreased to the magnitude of a great church,
without losing anything of the excessive glory that was compressed into
its original small compass, but all its pretty lustre made sublime by the
consequent immensity. At any rate, nobody who has not seen a church
like this can imagine what a gorgeous religion it was that reared it.

In the cathedral, and in all the churches, we saw priests and many
persons kneeling at their devotions; and our Salvator Rosa, whenever we
passed a chapel or shrine, failed not to touch the pavement with one
knee, crossing himself the while; and once, when a priest was going
through some form of devotion, he stopped a few moments to share in it.

He conducted us, too, to the Balbi Palace, the stateliest and most
sumptuous residence, but not more so than another which he afterwards
showed us, nor perhaps than many others which exist in Genoa, THE SUPERB.
The painted ceilings in these palaces are a glorious adornment; the walls