_Antibes_ again! We have returned here after an unsuccessful attempt to enter the Sardinian dominions. We were on the road by ten in the morning, and drove slowly along the shores of the Mediterranean, enjoying to the utmost the heavenly weather and the glorious scenery about us. The driver pointed out to us a few miles from Antibes, the very spot on which Napoleon landed on his return from Elba, and the tree, a fine old olive, under which he slept three hours, before commencing his march. We arrived at the _Pont de Var_ about one, and crossed the river, but here we were met by a guard of Sardinian soldiers, and our passports were demanded. The commissary came from the guard-house with a long pair of tongs, and receiving them open, read them at the longest possible distance. They were then handed back to us in the same manner, and we were told we could not pass. We then handed him our certificates of quarantine at Marseilles; but were told it availed nothing, a new order having arrived from Turin that very morning, to admit no travellers from infected or suspected places across the frontier. We asked if there were no means by which we could pass; but the commissary only shook his head, ordered us not to dismount on the Sardinian side of the river, and shut his door. We turned about and recrossed the bridge in some perplexity. The French commissary at St. Laurent, the opposite village, received us with a suppressed smile, and informed us that several parties of travellers, among others an English gentleman and his wife and sister, were at the _auberge_, waiting for an answer from the Prefect of Nice, having been turned back in the same manner since morning. We drove up, and they advised us to send our passports by the postillion, with a letter to the consuls of our respective nations, requesting information, which we did immediately.
Nice is three miles from St. Laurent, and as we could not expect an answer for several hours, we amused ourselves with a stroll along the banks of the Var to the Mediterranean. The Sardinian side is bold, and wooded to the tops of the hills very richly. We kept along a mile or more through the vineyards, and returned in time to receive a letter from the American consul, confirming the orders of the commissary, but advising us to return to Antibes, and sail thence for Villa Franca, a lazaretto in the neighborhood of Nice, whence we could enter Italy, after _seven days quarantine_! By this time several travelling-carriages had collected, and all, profiting by our experience, turned back together. We are now at the "Gold Eagle," deliberating. Some have determined to give up their object altogether, but the rest of us sail to-morrow morning in a fishing-boat for the lazaretto.