the case, would thrust out one of his feet and tap it three or four times with his hand, each time exclaiming, “Boots, boots, boots! do you understand? I want them boots." And so it went on to the intense aggravation of all parties except myself, whom it greatly amused.

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These instances are only a few among a multitude that have come under my notice, and are perpetually occurring. If one wishes to see crude human nature, let him travel, and he will be sure to meet with it under a thousand aspects. persons on their journeyings care to conceal their own peculiar temperaments. Many are unable to do so from their weakness and want of self-control. Many are too selfish; some have not sufficient tact or judgment. The great majority feel that they are for a time free and independent, and can safely cut loose from the ordinary social restraints of home, even though by so doing they seriously vex and incommode others. There should be a certain philosophy of travelling, as of everything else; a certain savoir faire, arising not only from knowledge of the world, but from a sense of what is due to ourselves as well as those around us. Yet in spite of all discomforts that we encounter, there is great strength in a cheerful frame of mind; and he is the wisest, and at the same time the most fortunate of travellers, who can enjoy to the full the humorous elements of every disaster, and shake off every lighter annoyance with a hearty laugh.

CHAPTER XIV.

RAVENNA.

In this quaint, fantastic, incongruous old town, a sort of ancient ark among cities, cast upon the shores of the present from the vast ocean of the past, one finds himself brought into closer connection with antiquity than at almost any other place in Italy. It is now little frequented by strangers, though there are very few localities that offer a greater variety of attraction, at least to those voyagers who do not journey merely from a morbid desire to murder time. Historically, the name of Ravenna is deeply suggestive to every reader. It was the capital of the Western Empire in those days when the brutal inundation of northern barbarism swept over Italy, and Huns and Vandals bore fire, famine, and slaughter up to the walls of Rome. Subsequently it became the seat of the Gothic and Longobardic kings, and the capital of the Greek Exarchs. Within its walls repose the remains of the children of Theodosius, and here is the superb mausoleum of the Empress Galla Placidia, mother of Valentinian III. Here are richly carved sarcophagi still containing the faint, thin, mortal dust

of ancient Cæsars, the only ones of all Italy, from the first of that name to the last, who have been allowed to rest undisturbed in their graves. Just without the walls is the sepulchre of Theodoric, king of the Goths, a magnificent monument of the art of his day, and as well preserved as when his body was placed in it. Here the traveller finds churches hoary with antiquity, and still resplendent with the bright mosaics madonnas and saints, martyrs and bishops, apostles and patriarchs with which the piety of the builders covered their walls in the earliest ages of Christianity. Here are grand basilicas, part of them nearly fifteen centuries old, still preserving uninjured the elegantly carved marbles and lofty columns that adorned them, when some pope with a long train of archbishops consecrated them to the services of religion. The ramparts of Ravenna yet retain the marks of the breaches made in them by the fierce swarms from the northern hive that desolated the land in far distant ages, and crumbling brick-work and mounds. of rubbish still show where Belisarius planted his engines in his famous siege and capture of the rebellious city.

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To Ravenna came Dante, when banished from ungrateful Florence by intolerant faction. Here he died, and here his bones repose. Qui nunquam quievit, quiescit; tace," might well be his epitaph. In the suburbs of Ravenna begins that vast and venerable forest of mighty pines, which for centuries

supplied the "great ammirals" of Rome and Venice with masts and spars; that "Pineta," replete with classic and poetic interest, whose praises were sung by Dante and Boccaccio, Dryden and Byron. In its secluded glades and far reaching gloomy vistas, "the world-worn Dante " communed with his own genius in sacred silence, and from these haunts of Nature drew a sombre comfort for the wrongs, many and undeserved, that he was suffering at the hands of his race. And even now, as we linger along these lonely and verdant aisles, the image of the sad poet still seems to attend us. We behold him walking with meditative stride; standing statue-like and silent; or perchance sitting with downcast eyes, as if pressed to earth by the heavy burden of his sorrow. So when in Florence was he wont to sit on the "Sasso di Dante," and look upon the masterpiece of Brunelleschi, fit symbol of his own genius, which was to go on conquering and to conquer, till, like that peerless dome, it was to tower aloft in its grandeur, and surpass the mightiness of emperors in its fame. In every thicket we see his furrowed face, earnest in its rugged grief, and grimly confiding in the assured justice of future ages, - still vitalizing with its melancholy life those abodes of deathly stillness which he once frequented.

Disconsolate poet, thou art ever with us, and to thy genius there is no earthly bourn. Thy woes unnumbered are our own. We, too, have been the scorn of man, and yet think it well to suffer mar

tyrdom with thee. We, too, have felt "the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely," and from thee have absorbed that vital strength which in thee was proof against the wrath of earth. In thy genius is still that lusty vigor which ever waxed more valiant in fight, and " turned to flight the armies of the aliens." Yea, "which through faith has subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, and stopped the mouths of lions." We, too, have entered the gates of hell through thy long-suffering, and mounted by its steep gradations to that heaven where thy own soul now enjoys its boundless inheritance. Thy people have become our people, and the creations of thy brain are the realities of our world. Ever vividly are with us "Farinata, lifting his haughty and tranquil brow from his couch of everlasting fire, the lion-like repose of Sordello, and the light which shone from the celestial smile of Beatrice." Under the dumb shadow of these mighty pines, they pass before us in long procession, and we linger, till the mild eye of the evening star draws them away far beyond the sunset. And now, though the nights darken about them, these ancient and trusty friends of thine, rough with abrading years, true to their glorious lineage, still stand "erect and tall, God-like erect." Proud, sturdy, unconciliating, they still press on into the future, as if inheriting from thee that indomitable soul which bore thee on to undying fame. May it long be our lot to benefit by the austere lesson they teach.