Two or three days from this interview, we got into our carriages, after dinner, and went down the valley of the Arno at night, to avoid the intense heat of the days, which, Americans, as we were, completely overcame us all. We reached the gates of Pisa just as the sun rose, and stopped a few hours to see the curiosities. By twelve we were completely melted with the heat, and were glad to get into our comfortable seats in the carriages again: I say, carriages, for I had hired an extra conveyance at Florence, our little flock having increased too much in size, though not in numbers, to be conveniently put into one, as formerly. We were all in our corners, half sleeping, half waking, when, about five miles from Leghorn, the whole party revived as suddenly as people awake from a doze. We had passed into the current of the sea air, and it acted on our spirits like a bath. I have known these veins of invigorating humidity drawn along the coast almost as accurately as the sands, so that one did not feel them two hundred feet from the water; but on this occasion we met the salt air at least a mile from the sea, though I never knew the effect greater or more sudden. Even the horses appeared to feel it, for they began to trot merrily, and soon brought us to the door of the Locanda San Marco. The honest Scotchman who keeps this inn gave us a large airy apartment, whose windows overlook both the sea and the mountains; two objects at which I never tire of gazing. As for the rest of the party, to whom the Mediterranean was entirely new, they had eyes for nothing else; and really, for those who had now passed years excluded from any sea finer than the North Sea, the bright glittering blue expanse was an object to be gazed at. To this was to be added the luxury of Italian rooms at the commencement of August; and, taking all together, I do not remember a happier party than we were for the two or three days we remained in this inn.