The Neapolitan Company’s boat, Mongibello, was advertised to leave the 12th, so, after procuring our passports, we went to the office to take passage.  The official, however, refused to give us tickets for the third place, because, forsooth, we were not servants or common laborers! and words were wasted in trying to convince him that it would make no difference.  As the second cabin fare was nearly three times as high, and entirely too dear for us, we went to the office of the Tuscan Company, whose boat was to leave in two days.  Through the influence of an Italian gentleman, secretary to Bartolini, the American Consul, whom we met, they agreed to take us for forty-five francs, on deck, the price of the Neapolitan boat being thirty.

Rather than stay two days longer in the dull town, we went again to the latter Company’s office and offered them forty-five francs to go that day in their boat.  This removed the former scruples, and tickets were immediately made out.  After a plentiful dinner at the albergo, to prepare ourselves for the exposure, we filled our pockets with a supply of bread, cheese, and figs, for the voyage.  We then engaged a boatman, who agreed to row us out to the steamer for two pauls, but after he had us on board and an oar’s length from the quay, he said two pauls apiece was his bargain.  I instantly refused, and, summoning the best Italian I could command, explained our agreement; but he still persisted in demanding double price.  The dispute soon drew a number of persons to the quay, some of whom, being boatmen, sided with him.  Finding he had us safe in his boat, his manner was exceedingly calm and polite.  He contradicted me with a “pardon, Signore!” accompanying the words with a low bow and a graceful lift of his scarlet cap, and replied to my indignant accusations in the softest and most silvery-modulated Roman sentences.  I found, at last, that if I was in the right, I cut the worse figure of the two, and, therefore, put an end to the dispute by desiring him to row on at his own price.

The hour of starting was two, but the boat lay quietly in the harbor till four, when we glided out on the open sea, and went northward, with the blue hills of Corsica far on our left.  A gorgeous sunset faded away over the water, and the moon rose behind the low mountains of the Italian coast.  Having found a warm and sheltered place near the chimney, I drew my beaver further over my eyes, to keep out the moonlight, and lay down on the deck with my knapsack under my head.  It was a hard bed, indeed; and the first time I attempted to rise, I found myself glued to the floor by the pitch which was smeared along the seams of the boards!  Our fellow-sufferers were a company of Swiss soldiers going home after a four years’ service under the King of Naples, but they took to their situation more easily than we.