Need I repeat that wherever one finds such a rich store of art as in Florence, there too will he find ladies and gentlemen of beauty, culture and refinement?  The same fascinating forms and features which characterize the men and women of Turin and Milan, are also met with here, but they comprise a much smaller proportion of the whole population.  It is fair to presume, however, that a large proportion of those which I saw in Florence were natives of distant parts of the globe, which streamed thither, by the thousand, to see that charming city.  One can nowhere see more intelligent company than in such a place as Florence; but how the most symmetrical and best looking people of all other countries contrast with Italian beauties, none but those few who ever go thither will ever learn to form the least conception of.  It has become my duty, however, to record the fact, that the most favored of all countries when they sail into the society of the fair daughters of sunny Italy cast a shadow about them, as we may fancy any human would when coming into the company of the beautiful angels of a heavenly Paradise.  Go reader, if you cannot visit Italy personally, and see what the poets say about these people, and believe every word they can say in favor of their charms.

Pisa.

From Florence I went to Pisa with the special object of seeing the famous Leaning Tower (1174-1350).  It is circular, having 15 pillars in the wall of the first story and 30 in each of the six succeeding ones.  On top of these, is another one (the eighth) much smaller than the rest, and probably built upon it after the tower had reached the amount of inclination which it now has.  The entire structure is 187 feet high, and 173 feet 9 inches in circumference (according to my own measurement).  The walls are from 5 to 7 feet thick.  There is a peal of bells at the top, the heaviest weighing 6 tons.  Nothing is more evident than that this tower assumed its leaning position by accident.  It is probable that this structure, which is the finest in Italy except Giotto’s Campanile at Florence, was originally designed to be a very high one, (perhaps 300 feet).  It is likely that the foundation did not give way until at the seventh story, and that after it came to a stand-still again, they capped it off abruptly by the odd little story which we now see at the top of it.  The inclination amounts to about 13 feet.  There is a circular pavement around it about 10 feet wide, which has the same angle of inclination that the tower itself has.  It is sunk 3 feet into the ground on one side and 8 feet on the other side.  Upon careful examination and measurement I discovered that the diameter of the basin thus formed is to the height of the tower, as the inclination of pavement constituting the floor of the basin is to the amount of inclination of the tower.

Let it be remembered, that this tower is not an independent structure, but that it stands near the east end of the Cathedral, as the elegant campanile at Florence stands near the cathedral of that city.