As the sun grew high, the heat and dust became intolerable, and this, in connection with the attention we raised everywhere, made us somewhat tired of foot-traveling in Italy.  I verily believe the people took us for pilgrims on account of our long white blouses, and had I a scallop shell I would certainly have stuck it into my hat to complete the appearance.  We stopped once to ask a priest the road; when he had told us, he shook hands with us and gave us a parting benediction.  At the common inns, where we stopped, we always met with civil treatment, though, indeed, as we only slept in them, there was little chance of practising imposition.  We bought our simple meals at the baker’s and grocer’s, and ate them in the shade of the grape-bowers, whose rich clusters added to the repast.  In this manner, we enjoyed Italy at the expense of a franc, daily.  About noon, after winding about through the narrow defiles, the road began ascending.  The reflected heat from the hills on each side made it like an oven; there was not a breath of air stirring; but we all felt, although no one said it, that from the summit we could see the Mediterranean, and we pushed on as if life or death depended on it.  Finally, the highest point came in sight—­we redoubled our exertions, and a few minutes more brought us to the top, breathless with fatigue and expectation.  I glanced down the other side—­there lay a real sea of mountains, all around; the farthest peaks rose up afar and dim, crowned with white towers, and between two of them which stood apart like the pillars of a gateway, we saw the broad expanse of water stretching away to the horizon—­

To where the blue of heaven on bluer waves shut down!”

It would have been a thrilling sight to see any ocean, when one has rambled thousands of miles among the mountains and vales of the inland, but to behold this sea, of all others, was glorious indeed!  This sea, whose waves wash the feet of Naples, Constantinople and Alexandria, and break on the hoary shores where Troy and Tyre and Carthage have mouldered away!—­whose breast has been furrowed by the keels of a hundred nations through more than forty centuries—­from the first rude voyage of Jason and his Argonauts, to the thunders of Navarino that heralded the second birth of Greece!  You cannot wonder we grew romantic; but short space was left for sentiment in the burning sun, with Genoa to be reached before night.  The mountain we crossed is called the Bochetta, one of the loftiest of the sea-Alps (or Apennines)—­the road winds steeply down towards the sea, following a broad mountain rivulet, now perfectly dried up, as nearly every stream among the mountains is.  It was a long way to us; the mountains seemed as if they would never unfold and let us out on the shore, and our weary limbs did penance enough for a multitude of sins.  The dusk was beginning to deepen over the bay and the purple hues of sunset were dying away from its amphitheatre of hills, as we came in sight of the gorgeous city.  Half the population were out to celebrate a festival, and we made our entry in the triumphal procession of some saint.