The natives were wilder than the place.  Our near neighbours of San Terenzo were more like savages than any people I ever before lived among.  Many a night they passed on the beach, singing, or rather howling; the women dancing about among the waves that broke at their feet, the men leaning against the rocks and joining in their loud wild chorus.  We could get no provisions nearer than Sarzana, at a distance of three miles and a half off, with the torrent of the Magra between; and even there the supply was very deficient.  Had we been wrecked on an island of the South Seas, we could scarcely have felt ourselves farther from civilisation and comfort; but, where the sun shines, the latter becomes an unnecessary luxury, and we had enough society among ourselves.  Yet I confess housekeeping became rather a toilsome task, especially as I was suffering in my health, and could not exert myself actively.

At first the fatal boat had not arrived, and was expected with great impatience.  On Monday, 12th May, it came.  Williams records the long-wished-for fact in his journal:  ’Cloudy and threatening weather.  M. Maglian called; and after dinner, and while walking with him on the terrace, we discovered a strange sail coming round the point of Porto Venere, which proved at length to be Shelley’s boat.  She had left Genoa on Thursday last, but had been driven back by the prevailing bad winds.  A Mr. Heslop and two English seamen brought her round, and they speak most highly of her performances.  She does indeed excite my surprise and admiration.  Shelley and I walked to Lerici, and made a stretch off the land to try her:  and I find she fetches whatever she looks at.  In short, we have now a perfect plaything for the summer.’—­It was thus that short-sighted mortals welcomed Death, he having disguised his grim form in a pleasing mask!  The time of the friends was now spent on the sea; the weather became fine, and our whole party often passed the evenings on the water when the wind promised pleasant sailing.  Shelley and Williams made longer excursions; they sailed several times to Massa.  They had engaged one of the seamen who brought her round, a boy, by name Charles Vivian; and they had not the slightest apprehension of danger.  When the weather was unfavourable, they employed themselves with alterations in the rigging, and by building a boat of canvas and reeds, as light as possible, to have on board the other for the convenience of landing in waters too shallow for the larger vessel.  When Shelley was on board, he had his papers with him; and much of the “Triumph of Life” was written as he sailed or weltered on that sea which was soon to engulf him.