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[Illustration: DAZIO CONSUMO de VENTEMILLE. (A WRANGLE AT AN ITALIAN CUSTOM HOUSE.)]
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PARIS, MACON, GENEVA, MENTONE, SAN REMO, MONTE CARLO, MONACO, ITALY, GENOA, TURIN, LEGHORN, PISA, NAPLES, ROME, REGGIO, SICILY, MESSINA, CATANIA, SYRACUSE, MALTA, GIBRALTAR.
BIRKENHEAD: PRINTED BY E. GRIFFITH AND SON, HAMILTON STREET.
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The idea of writing a short narrative of a trip to the Mediterranean suggested itself by the numerous enquiries as to “where did you go?” “what did you see that afforded most interest?”
It is difficult to compress into half-an-hour, with any degree of clearness, what can be seen in six weeks, and covering 5,000 miles.
I beg my friends to accept this broken and disjointed attempt at description. I have tried to say a little about most that I visited, whether they treated me well or badly.
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“TRY a sea trip, if you can manage it,” was the last prescription I had from Dr. Banks, “it will do you more good than any medicine.” This was about the beginning of February. I found a companion in the same humour as myself, and it was agreed that we should make for the Mediterranean, going overland.
Armed with passport, pistols, powder (Keating’s insect), candles, soap, Bradshaw’s Continental and Baedeker’s Guides, and other requisites too numerous to mention, on the 18th of February we started from Birkenhead for London.
After a day in London, we booked and registered our luggage for Paris, and swept through beautiful Kent, with its hills and valleys and hop fields, like a garden in early spring.
The chops in the channel were very disagreeable, and made us feel quiet, and look very green and uncomfortable.
The steamer ran us alongside the railway pier at Calais. After luncheon we took train; were then backed through some of the principal streets, to attach some more carriages. As we sped along we soon came across the old familiar blue blouse and baggy trousers of the French peasant, busy with his spring cultivation. Leaving Boulogne and Amiens, reached Paris early in the evening.