So it happened that, getting out of the diligence before it reached Foggia, I struck south, and wandered for some days from one little town to another, being always hospitably entertained, whether there happened to be an albergo or not, at private houses, seeing in this way more of the manners and customs of the inhabitants than would have been otherwise possible, gaining much information as to the haunts of the brigands, the whereabouts of the troops, and hearing much local gossip generally.  The ignorance of the most respectable classes at this period was astounding; it has doubtless all changed since.  I have been at a town of 2000 inhabitants, not one of whom took in a newspaper:  the whole population, therefore, was in as profound ignorance of what was transpiring in the rest of the world as if they had been in Novaia Zemlia.  I have stayed with a mayor who did not know that England was an island; I have been the guest of a citizen who had never heard of Scotland, and to whom, therefore, my nationality was an enigma:  but I never met any one—­I mean of this same class—­who had not heard of Palmerston.  He was a mysterious personage, execrated by the “blacks” and adored by the “reds.”  And I shone with a reflected lustre as the citizen of a country of which he was the Prime Minister.  As a consequence, we had political discussions, which were protracted far into the night, for the principal meal of the twenty-four hours was a 10 o’clock P.M. supper, at which, after the inevitable macaroni, were many unwholesome dishes, such as salads made of thistles, cows’ udders, and other delicacies, which deprived one of all desire for sleep.  Notwithstanding which, we rose early, my hostess and the ladies of the establishment appearing in the early part of the day in the most extreme deshabille.  Indeed, on one occasion when I was first introduced into the family of a respectable citizen, and shown into my bedroom, I mistook one of two females who were making the bed for the servant, and was surprised to see her hand a little douceur I gave her as an earnest of attention on her part, to the other with a smile.  She soon afterwards went to bed:  we all did, from 11 A.M. till about 3 P.M., at which hour I was horrified to meet her arrayed in silks and satins, and to find that she was the wife of my host.  She kindly took me a drive with her in a carriage and pair, and with a coachman in livery.

It was by this simple means, and by thus imposing myself upon the hospitality of these unsophisticated people, that I worked my way by slow degrees, chiefly on foot, into the part of the country I desired to visit; and I trust that I in a measure repaid them for it by the stores of information which I imparted to them, and of which they stood much in need, and by little sketches of their homes and the surrounding scenery, with which I presented them.  I was, indeed, dependent in some measure for hospitality of this description, as I had taken no money with me,