"The Grand Opera House of Turin is very spacious, containing six rows of boxes, dimly lighted by a single small chandelier suspended over the centre of the pit. The rest of the lights are reserved for the stage, by which the scenic effects are greatly heightened; but I doubt if what is gained in that respect would reconcile an American audience to sit in a sort of twilight so dim as scarcely to allow one to know the complexion of the person sitting at his side. The performances were very ordinary, and presented nothing worth mentioning or remembering." He rode into beautiful Genoa over that magnificent Corniche road whose left side is diversified with stretching fields and olive-orchards and soaring cliffs, whose right side the blue ocean fringes. The city has a charm to the imagination of an American from its connection with Columbus, and a charm to the eye from that lovely semicircle of mountains embracing it, and which so slope to the waves of the sea in front and blend with the clouds of the sky in the rear that it is often impossible for the gazer to tell where earth ends and heaven begins. It was Sunday when Forrest entered Genoa. Looking out into the glorious bay, he saw an American ship of war riding proudly at anchor, the beautiful banner of stars and stripes hanging at her peak, every mast and spar and rope mirrored in the glassy flood below. His breast thrilled at the sight. He hired a boatman to row him out. Clambering up the side, he asked permission of the commander to come on deck and to stand underneath the flag. It was granted, and, looking up at the silken folds floating between him and heaven, he breathed deeply in pride and joy. "The ship," he said, "was a fragment of my country floated away here, and in touching it I felt reunited to the whole again." He made a long tarry in Florence, studying the treasures of art for which that city is so renowned. He became intimate with Horatio Greenough, for whose genius--hardly yet appreciated as it deserves--he felt the warmest admiration. "He favored me," writes Forrest, "with a sight of his yet unfinished model for the statue of Washington, which was ordered by our government. He has represented the Father of his Country in a sitting posture, his left hand grasping the sword intrusted to him by the people for the achievement of their liberties, and his right pointing upward, as if to express reliance on the God of battles and the justice of his cause. With what different emotions did I regard this statue from those created by the marble honors paid to the Cæsars of the olden time! How my heart warmed with patriotic ardor and my eyes moistened as I looked on the reverend image of the great sage and hero! As an American I felt allied to him,--as an American I felt, too, with a consciousness that diffused a warm and grateful flush upon my cheek, that I was an heir to that sacred legacy of freedom which he and his compatriots bequeathed to their country."