Now commenced one of the most extraordinary roads it was ever my good fortune to travel. It ran for a long distance on the very margin of the sea, the carriage literally rolling along the beach in places. I cannot recount the names of all the pretty little fishing and trading hamlets that we galloped through in this manner; but they were numberless, and now and then we had a town.--The shore was fairly lined with them; while the mountains, inland, soon began to tower upward to an Alpine magnitude. This was the commencement of the Maritime Alps; and the following day we were to turn their flank along what is aptly enough termed the _corniche_ road. Imagination cannot portray bits of scenery more picturesque than some that offered on the beach. Wild ravines, down which broad and rapid torrents poured their contributions, opened towards the hills; and bridges of a singular construction and of great antiquity frequently spanned them in bold and imposing flights. Many of those wide arches were half ruined, adding the aid of association to their other charms. As for the beach, it was principally of sand; and wherever a hamlet occurred, it was certain to be lined with boats and feluccas, some lying on their bilges, and others shored up on their keels, with perhaps a sail spread to dry. How some of these crafts, vessels of forty or fifty tons, in the absence of tides, were got there, or how they were to be got off again, exceeded my skill at conjecture; though the _conducteur_ affirmed that they sailed upon the sands, and would sail off again when they wished to put to sea! Here and there a prettily-modelled felucca was on the ways. Altogether it was an extraordinary passage, differing entirely from any I had ever before made. Night overtook us a little before we reached Savona, and for several hours we travelled in darkness. We had left Noli before the day dawned; and when it came, it opened on an entirely different scene. The beach was deserted,--or rather, there was no longer a beach, but the coast had become rocky and broken.--The land was heaving itself up in gigantic forms, and on our right appeared a peak that bears the name of _Monte Finale_. It was the last summit of the Alps! The huge background of mountains protects all this coast from the north winds, and the sun of a low latitude beating against it, joined to the bland airs of this miraculous sea, conspire to render all this region precocious. Even the palm was growing in one or two places; and though only in the first days of March, we felt all the symptoms of a young spring. This harmony between the weather and the views contributed largely to my pleasures.