The head-dress of the women in this drive through some of the northern states of Italy varied at every post; from the velvet cap, commonly a crimson one, worn by the girls in Savoia, to the Piedmontese plait round the bodkin at Turin, and the odd kind of white wrapper used in the exterior provinces of the Genoese dominions.  Uniformity of almost any sort gives a certain pleasure to the eye, and it seems an invariable rule in these countries that all the women of every district should dress just alike.  It is the best way of making the men’s task easy in judging which is handsomest; for taste so varies the human figure in France and England, that it is impossible to have an idea how many pretty faces and agreeable forms would lose and how many gain admirers in those nations, were a sudden edict to be published that all should dress exactly alike for a year.  Mean time, since we left Deffeins, no such delightful place by way of inn have we yet seen as here at Novi.  My chief amusement at Alexandria was to look out upon the huddled marketplace, as a great dramatic writer of our day has called it; and who could help longing there for Zoffani’s pencil to paint the lively scene?

Passing the Po by moon-light near Casale exhibited an entertainment of a very different nature, not unmixed with ill-concealed fear indeed; though the contrivance of crossing it is not worse managed than a ferry at Kew or Richmond used to be before our bridges were built.  Bridges over the rapid Po would, however, be truly ridiculous; when swelled by the mountain snows it tears down all before it in its fury, and inundates the country round.

The drive from Novi on to Genoa is so beautiful, so grand, so replete with imagery, that fancy itself can add little to its charms:  yet, after every elegance and every ornament have been justly admired, from the cloud which veils the hill, to the wild shrubs which perfume the valley; from the precipices which alarm the imagination, to the tufts of wood which flatter and sooth it; the sea suddenly appearing at the end of the Bocchetta terminates our view, and takes from one even the hope of expressing our delight in words adequate to the things described.

Genoa la Superba stands proudly on the margin of a gulph crowded with ships, and resounding with voices, which never fail to animate a British hearer—­the Tailor’s shout, the mariner’s call, swelled by successful commerce, or strengthened by newly-acquired fame.

After a long journey by land, such scenes are peculiarly delightful; but description tangles, not communicates, the sensations imbibed upon the spot.  Here are so many things to describe! such churches! such palaces! such pictures! one would imagine the Genoese possessed the empire of the ocean, were it not well known that they call but fix galleys their own, and seventy years ago suffered all the horrors of a bombardment.