I was surprised at the beauty of the Leaning Tower.  Instead of all old, black, crumbling fabric, as I always supposed, it is a light, airy, elegant structure, of white marble, and its declension, which is interesting as a work of art (or accident,) is at the same time pleasing from its novelty.  There have been many conjectures as to the cause of this deviation, which is upwards of fourteen feet from the perpendicular; it is now generally believed that the earth having sunk when the building was half finished, it was continued by the architects in the same angle.  The upper gallery, which is smaller than the others, shows a very perceptible inclination back towards the perpendicular, as if in some degree to counterbalance the deviation of the other part.  There are eight galleries in all, supported by marble pillars, but the inside of the Tower is hollow to the very top.

We ascended by the same stairs which were trodden so often by Galileo in going up to make his astronomical observations; in climbing spirally around the hollow cylinder in the dark, it was easy to tell on which side of the Tower we were, from the proportionate steepness of the staircase.  There is a fine view from the top, embracing the whole plain as far as Leghorn on one side, with its gardens and grain fields spread out like a vast map.  In a valley of the Carrarrese Mountains to the north, we could see the little town of Lucca, much frequented at this season on account of its baths; the blue summits of the Appenines shut in the view to the east.  In walking through the city I noticed two other towers, which had nearly as great a deviation from the perpendicular.  We met a person who had the key of the Baptistery, which he opened for us.  Two ancient columns covered with rich sculpture form the doorway, and the dome is supported by massive pillars of the red marble of Elba.  The baptismal font is of the purest Parian marble.  The most remarkable thing was the celebrated musical echo.  Our cicerone stationed himself at the side of the font and sang a few notes.  After a moment’s pause they were repeated aloft in the dome, but with a sound of divine sweetness—­as clear and pure as the clang of a crystal bell.  Another pause—­and we heard them again, higher, fainter and sweeter, followed by a dying note, as if they were fading far away into heaven.  It seemed as if an angel lingered in the temple, echoing with his melodious lips the common harmonies of earth.  Even thus does the music of good deeds, hardly noted in our grosser atmosphere, awake a divine echo in the far world of spirit.

The Campo Santo, on the north side of the Cathedral, was, until lately, the cemetery of the city; the space enclosed within its marble galleries is filled to the depth of eight or ten feet, with earth from the Holy Land.  The vessels which carried the knights of Tuscany to Palestine were filled at Joppa, on returning, with this earth as ballast, and on arriving at Pisa it was deposited in the Cemetery.  It has the peculiar