poverty, I found the Italian people ever gay and happy. Neither the hovels of Naples, nor the malaria of the marshes,

nor the cold winds of the Apennines, seem able to repress the richiam.

irrepressible gayety of this happy race. Their country, a land hoary with age and antiquities, is an ever-present reminder of the shortness of human life, of the vanity of all things human. Accustomed to seeing the Forum where Julius Cæsar expired, or wagon ruts made in Pompeii twenty centuries ago, the Italian looks upon Time with different eyes and different feelings from the American who thinks of Washington as almost as remote in the past as Cæsar; and of the discovery of his country as a thing almost prehistoric.

The longest period of life-one hundred years-seems very short in Italy. The Italian deems it wise to make the best of his little day while it lasts, leaving the future to take care of itself. To him, perhaps, as well as to the stranger viewing this land of past peoples, do the lines of the poet* recur:

"From cradle to coffin we struggle and seek,
Till the fugitive years of our lives are past,
But whether our lots be blessed or bleak,

We are tossed like dogs to the worms at last.

"What is the use of it, then, I say?

Why are we brought from the blank unknown,
To weep and dance through a little day

That drifts us under a burial stone?"

*Will H. Kernan.

5

CHAPTER XII.

ODD COMPANIONS.-AN ENTHUSIASTIC ITALIAN. THE PROFESSOR. -CLIMBING THE ALPS.-THE SIMPLON PASS.-AN ENGLISH GIRL GIVES ME ALMS.-DIFFERENT SORTS OF TOURISTS: GERMAN, FRENCH, ENGLISH.

Nor the least enjoyable feature about travel is the opportunity afforded of observing odd and interesting characters. On the Independente one evening, while standing on deck watching the setting sun, a black-mustached, dark-skinned Italian, who knew I was an American, and who was filled with patriotic desire to show up the superior attractions of his own hemisphere, pulled me by the sleeve.

"Dio mio!" he cried, with enthusiasm. in America like that? What you think? Where you see sunset like that?"

"What you see

What you want?

"Nowhere, signore," I gravely replied. "There is nothing. in America like that."

66

"What! you like that?" he burst out, exultantly, shaking his finger at me. Ah, you wait; that is no-thing. Wait till the Mediterranean; there I show you some-thing!"

In Genoa this patriotic Italian went with me to the Church of San Lorenzo.

"Dio mio! what you think? what you want?" he exclaimed, as we gazed at the gilded columns.

ica like that-eh ?-ch?"

66

What you see in Amer

"Nothing, signore. We have no church like that."

"Ah!" with a sigh of extreme satisfaction—" ah, you wait; this is no-thing. I bring you to Naples; there I show you some-thing."

In Naples my Italian went through a similar performance. Whatever I saw to admire, although far excelling anything

I had left behind, was nothing to the glories I would see at some other Italian place.

There sat opposite me one day in a Milan milkery a young man who, like myself, was making a frugal breakfast of bread and milk. From his appearance I judged he was an American. He had an amiable, kind face, so I ventured to open a conversation.

"Fine weather," was my original and brilliant remark. Slowly turning his eyes upon me-they had an abstracted, faraway look-he gravely asked if I had given much thought as to the ultimate end of man? I confessed I had not.

"Man's end is only a question of time. You must know," he went on, after gulping down the last drop of milk in his glass-"you must know his end is only a question of time. I have been turning over in my mind what it is that will end him. What do you think of freezing?"

"A very good way, if it must be done; but I hope it may be put off as long as possible."

"It won't be done in our time."

"I am glad to hear it. I like warmth."

"Oh, it will come on so slowly we will hardly know what it is that is killing us. Scientists predict a return of the glacial period."

This young man was not at all a lunatic, although at that first meeting I took him to be one. He was only a little eccentric. That meeting was the beginning of a companionship I found very pleasant. I dubbed him "Professor." We travelled together through Switzerland on foot.

Rivo is a small hamlet one thousand feet above Lake Coino. The Professor and I climbed up to Rivo, there to pass the night, and in the morning begin with fresh strength the ascent of Mount Generoso, some four thousand feet above Rivo. Few travellers pass this way. We were objects of curiosity; the women in Rivo stood in their doors and stared at us. Going up to an elderly dame, we asked if she could lodge us.

“Wait; I will ask my mother," said the old lady.

Her mother! She looked like a grandmother herself. Back she trotted, and behind her trotted a still older woman, who peered at us keenly from under her shaggy old eyebrows, and agreed to lodge us and give us a supper of bread and milk— all she had. The younger woman had never married, and still maintained the habit of filial obedience, although she looked sixty or seventy years old.

We began the climb next morning at daybreak, in a mist of fog and cloud. When at an elevation of some three thousand feet, we heard a voice shouting from the other side of the deep ravine. We dimly discerned through the mist a man gesticulating violently.

"We must be on the wrong track," I said to the Professor; "that man thinks we are in danger."

Not the least discomposed, the Professor coolly took out his guide-books and maps. But I was afraid to trust a dreamer as guide on the top of a mist-covered mountain with deep ravines and precipices, where one might stumble without a minute's warning. I had more faith in the peasant, who continued to shout and wave his hands warningly. Without more ado, I called the Professor to follow, and began to jump from stone to stone along the sides of the ravine. Fifteen minutes brought us to the peasant, who, as I expected, said we were following the wrong path, and pointed out the right. I gave him a few cents for his kindness, and we walked on. The Professor smiled on me with grave pity.

"My friend," he said, "you think that innocent peasant wanted to show you the right way? All he wanted was a fee, in return for which he has shown you the wrong way. The Swiss peasant resents a tourist's mountaineering without a guide. IIe feels at liberty to humbug travellers if he can."

Refusing to believe that simple-hearted man capable of such a trick, I pursued the path he pointed out, in full confidence that the Professor was mistaken.

"I don't mind the extra walk," said the Professor. a delightful morning, and we have plenty of time."

"It is And so

we kept on, until the path wound around the ravine and began a plain and rapid descent.

"Now," said the Professor, "you see this path leads to the base, not to the summit of the mountain."

I saw.

"There is nothing left but to retrace our steps, or to pitch out through the woods and find the summit for ourselves."

It was my turn to follow, so we plunged into the wet brushwood and pushed on. Emerging from the wood, with some consternation we saw ourselves confronted by a great green wall nine hundred feet high. It seemed hardly possible that we could climb this grassy, slippery ascent.

"At the worst, we can slide down if we fail to climb," said the Professor.

The grass was wet, but fortunately was strong. When our foothold gave way, we wound our hands in the long blades of grass, and lay flat on our faces to rest and recover exhausted strength. The Professor had spoken cheerfully of sliding down, but I did not fancy the idea; a nine hundred foot slide down a steep, almost perpendicular, mountain-slope is no light matter. My hair almost stood on end whenever, as several times happened, the grass came up by the roots, and I felt myself slipping down. When at length we reached the end of the slope, we were covered from head to foot with a greenish slime. And what was the reward of this fatigue and peril? A view about ten yards in diameter!-ten yards and no more; for the mist in which we had been enveloped for the last two hours still remained, cutting off the magnificent panorama of the Alps and the Italian plains that is to be seen from this lofty height on a clear, sunshiny day.

Stuffing his guide-books in his capacious pockets, the Professor produced a bottle of ink, a pen, and a diary, and began to write. Looking over his shoulder, I read :

"June 1st, 11.31 A.M. I write this in a cloud on the summit of Mount Generoso, 6531 feet above the sea.'

That was the Professor, exact to the half inch. If you