Now indeed we were glad of the awning, under which a silent crowd of people with sunburnt faces waited for the departure of the boat.  The breeze rose again as the engine resumed its unappreciated labors, and, with our head toward Como, we pushed out into the lake.  The company on board was such as might be expected.  There was a German landscape-painter, with three heart’s-friends beside him; there were some German ladies; there were the unfailing Americans and the unfailing Englishman; there were some French people; there were Italians from the meridional provinces, dark, thin, and enthusiastic, with fat silent wives, and a rhythmical speech; there were Milanese with their families, out for a holiday,—­round-bodied men, with blunt square features, and hair and vowels clipped surprisingly short, there was a young girl whose face was of the exact type affected in rococo sculpture, and at whom one gazed without being able to decide whether she was a nymph descended from a villa gate, or a saint come from under a broken arch in a Renaissance church.  At one of the little towns two young Englishmen in knickerbockers came on board, who were devoured by the eyes of their fellow-passengers, and between whom and our kindly architect there was instantly ratified the tacit treaty of non-intercourse which travelling Englishmen observe.

Nothing further interested us on the way to Como, except the gathering coolness of the evening air; the shadows creeping higher and higher on the hills; the songs of the girls winding yellow silk on the reels that hummed through the open windows of the factories on the shore; and the appearance of a flag that floated from a shallop before the landing of a stately villa.  The Italians did not know this banner, and the Germans loudly debated its nationality.  The Englishmen grinned, and the Americans blushed in silence.  Of all my memories of that hot day on Lake Como, this is burnt the deepest; for the flag was that insolent banner which in 1862 proclaimed us a broken people, and persuaded willing Europe of our ruin.  It has gone down long ago from ship and fort and regiment, as well as from the shallop on the fair Italian lake.  Still, I say, it made Como too hot for us that afternoon, and even breathless Milan was afterwards a pleasant contrast.

STOPPING AT VICENZA, VERONA, AND PARMA.

I.

It was after sunset when we arrived in the birthplace of Palladio, which we found a fair city in the lap of caressing hills.  There are pretty villas upon these slopes, and an abundance of shaded walks and drives about the houses which were pointed out to us, by the boy who carried our light luggage from the railway station, as the property of rich citizens “but little less than lords” in quality.  A lovely grove lay between the station and the city, and our guide not only took us voluntarily by the