The arrival of a party of strangers created a sensation; for, with the exception of the brief interruption of the presence of Napoleon, there are few more retired spots in Europe than this. We went to the best inn, which bears the imposing title of the _Quattro Nazioni_. It was far from bad, and it gave us a reasonably good dinner farthermore, it promised us four beds and a sofa, should we pass the night there. The art of colouring the bricks of the floors has not reached this inn; for the room in which we dined had a sofa and seven mirrors, while the floor was of coarse, dirt-coloured bricks full of holes. Ireland and America are not the only countries in which discrepancies in style occur. In short, England is the only country where they do not; and even in England there is something inappropriate, in seeing three or four powdered lackeys, and a well-appointed equipage, before the door of a mean, dingy town-house of bricks, with three or four windows in front and quite destitute of all architectural taste. I had some conversation with the people of the house concerning their late sovereign. Napoleon arrived in the evening, and remained in the frigate until next day. One of his first acts was to send for the oldest known flag used by Elba, and this he caused to be hoisted on the forts; a sign of independency. He was not much seen in the town, though he often rode out on horseback, and a carriage-road around the head of the bay was pointed out as his work. We found it so agreeable to be on a spot to which travellers do not resort, that, I think, the felucca would have been discharged, and we should have remained on this island two or three months, had good accommodations offered. There were also some hints of malaria that did not encourage this notion. While at the inn, I saw what the Italians call a _tarantula_: not a spider, but the lizard which bears this name. Perhaps nine-tenths of the Italians fancy the bite of this animal mortal; though it cannot bite at all, I believe. It is a perfectly inoffensive lizard, living on insects, and is found in America, where no one ever hears of its poison. It is, however, a most disgusting-looking object; which is probably the reason it bears so bad a name. The scorpion of Italy, also, is not in favour. We found several at St. Illario, but they are not dangerous in this latitude; the sting being about as bad as the bite of a spider. Both these animals are held in great respect by ordinary travellers; Mr. Carter, among others, dwelling on their horrors. This amiable and well-intentioned man saw more important things through quite as mistaken a medium.