Here the Apennines approached the Mediterranean, until we soon saw their noble piles forming capes and headlands, impending over the blue element. It was altogether a wild and picturesque road, running among and over mountains, along the margin of torrents and through frowning gorges, with occasional openings toward the Mediterranean, that seemed like the breaking away of clouds in winter. One of the most extraordinary features of the scenery was the manner in which grey villages were stuck like wasps’ nests against the acclivities, resembling romantic structures placed in the most picturesque positions on purpose to produce an effect. Fifty of these dusky hamlets rose like bas-reliefs, or embossings, from the brown sides of the mountains; and some of them seemed perched on pinnacles that the foot of man could hardly scale.--I had never before seen anything, in its way, half so wild and romantic as the rustic hamlets in the distance; though a few that we entered completely destroyed the charm on the near view. At Spezzia an indentation of the coast brought our carriage wheels fairly into the water; and after this we began to ascend. Just as night closed we were buried in the mountains, and I composed myself to sleep. A jog from the _conductor_ awoke me, while we were driving through a gallery that equalled the boasted cuttings of the Simplon.--Looking out, I found we were on the coast again; and passing village after village in quick succession, we reached the gates of Genoa, amid a crowd of donkeys, and of market-people of both sexes, who profited by our arrival to enter the town. You are to remember that I have promised nothing but the gleanings that are to be had after the harvests gathered by those who have gone before me. My task, therefore, is less one of minute and close description, than of desultory findings. This peculiarity may cause occasional meagreness of facts, and some apparent eccentricities of thought; for while I pretend to have gathered no more of what has been left by others than has come in my way, most of what I have actually seen is necessarily unrecorded, and on matters of opinion are commonly uttered when I have found reason to differ from the multitude.