This attack of nostalgia was probably largely due to atmospheric conditions, for at least one thunderstorm seems to have been a matter of daily occurrence.  This, added to the noisome odors arising from the canals, affected his health, for he complains of feeling more unwell than at any time since he left home.  It must, therefore, have been with no feelings of great regret that he packed his belongings and prepared to leave Venice with a companion, Mr. Ferguson, of Natchez, on the 18th of July.  His objective point was Paris, but he planned to linger by the way and take a leisurely course through the Italian lake region, Switzerland, and Germany.  The notebooks give a detailed but rather dry account of the daily happenings.  It was, presumably, Morse’s intention to elaborate these, at some future day, into a more entertaining record of his wanderings; but this was never done.  I shall, therefore, pass on rapidly, touching but lightly on the incidents of the journey, which were, in the main, without special interest.  The route lay through Padua, Vicenza, Verona, and Brescia to Milan.  From Vicenza a side trip was made to the watering-place of Recoaro, where a few days were most delightfully spent in the company of the English consul at Venice, Mr. Money, and his family.

“Recoaro, like all watering-places, is beginning to be the resort of the fashionable world.  The Grand Duchess of Tuscany is now here, and on Saturday the Vice-Queen of Italy is expected from Milan to visit her aunt, the Grand Duchess....  Towards evening parties of ladies and gentlemen are seen promenading or riding on donkeys along the brows of the mountains and among the trees, and many priests are seen disfiguring the landscape with their tasteless, uncouth dresses; most of them coming, I was informed on the best authority, for the purpose of gambling and dissipating that time of which, from the trifling nature of their duties and the almost countless increase of their numbers, they have so much to spare.  Cards have the most fascination for them.”

Another incident of the stay at Recoaro is worth recording.  Referring to the family of Mr. Money, he says:—­

“In the afternoon took an excursion on donkeys with the whole family among the wild and romantic scenery.  In returning, while riding by the side of Mr. Money and in conversation with him, my donkey stumbled upon his knees and threw me over his head, without injury to me, but Mrs. Money, who was just before me, seeing the accident, was near fainting and, during the rest of the day, was invisible.  I was somewhat surprised at the effect produced on her until I learned that the news of the loss of her son in India by a fall from his horse, which had recently reached her, had rendered her nerves peculiarly sensitive.”

Two days later, however, he joined them in another excursion.