We have reason to remember the city from another circumstance—­the singular attention we excited.  I doubt if Columbus was an object of greater curiosity to the simple natives of the new world, than we three Americans were to the good people of Pavia.  I know not what part of our dress or appearance could have caused it, but we were watched like wild animals.  If we happened to pause and look at anything in the street, there was soon a crowd of attentive observers, and as we passed on, every door and window was full of heads.  We stopped in the marketplace to purchase some bread and fruit for dinner, which increased, if possible, the sensation.  We saw eyes staring and fingers pointing at us from every door and alley.  I am generally willing to contribute as much as possible to the amusement or entertainment of others, but such attention was absolutely embarrassing.  There was nothing to do but to appear unconscious of it, and we went along with as much nonchalance as if the whole town belonged to us.

We crossed the Ticino, on whose banks near Pavia, was fought the first great battle between Hannibal and the Romans.  On the other side our passports were demanded at the Sardinian frontier and our knapsacks searched, which having proved satisfactory, we were allowed to enter the kingdom.  Late in the afternoon we reached the Po, which in winter must be quarter of a mile wide, but the summer heats had dried it up to a small stream, so that the bridge of boats rested nearly its whole length in sand.  We sat on the bank in the shade, and looked at the chain of hills which rose in the south, following the course of the Po, crowned with castles and villages and shining towers.  It was here that I first began to realize Italian scenery.  Although the hills were bare, they lay so warm and glowing in the sunshine, and the deep blue sky spread so calmly above, that it recalled all my dreams of the fair clime we had entered.

We stopped for the night at the little village of Casteggio, which lies at the foot of the hills, and next morning resumed our pilgrimage.  Here a new delight awaited us.  The sky was of a heavenly blue, without even the shadow of a cloud, and full and fair in the morning sunshine we could see the whole range of the Alps, from the blue hills of Friuli, which sweep down to Venice and the Adriatic, to the lofty peaks which stretch away to Nice and Marseilles!  Like a summer cloud, except that they were far more dazzling and glorious, lay to the north of us the glaciers and untrodden snow-fields of the Bernese Oberland; a little to the right we saw the double peak of St. Gothard, where six days before we shivered in the region of eternal winter, while far to the north-west rose the giant dome of Mount Blanc.  Monte Rosa stood near him, not far from the Great St. Bernard, and further to the south Mont Cenis guarded the entrance from Piedmont into France.  I leave you to conceive the majesty of such a scene, and you may perhaps imagine, for I cannot describe the feelings with which I gazed upon it.