My daughters were engaged to ride with a large party, and the meet was at our house. A Roman, who happened to go out first, saw a friar, and rushed in again laughing, and waited till he was out of sight. Soon after they set off, this gentleman was thrown from his horse and ducked in a pool; so the "_Jettatura_" was fulfilled. But my daughters thought his bad seat on horseback enough to account for his fall without the Evil Eye. CHAPTER XV. ALBANO--POPULAR SINGING--LETTERS FROM MRS. SOMERVILLE--GIBSON--PERUGIA--COMET OF 1843--SUMMER AT VENICE--LETTERS FROM MRS. SOMERVILLE AND MISS JOANNA BAILLIE--ELECTED ASSOCIATE OF THE COLLEGE OF RESURGENTI AND R.I. ACADEMY OF SCIENCE AT AREZZO. In spring we went to Albano, and lived in a villa, high up on the hill in a beautiful situation not far from the lake. The view was most extensive, commanding the whole of the Campagna as far as Terracina, &c. In this wide expanse we could see the thunderclouds forming and rising gradually over the sky before the storm, and I used to watch the vapour condensing into a cloud as it rose into the cool air. I never witnessed anything so violent as the storms we had about the equinox, when the weather broke up. Our house being high above the plain became enveloped in vapour till, at 3 p.m. we could scarcely see the olives which grew below our windows, and crash followed crash with no interval between the lightning and the thunder, so that we felt sure many places must have been struck; and we were not mistaken--trees, houses, and even cattle had been struck close to us. Somerville went to Florence to attend a scientific meeting, and wrote to us that the lightning there had stripped the gold leaf off the conductors on the powder magazine; a proof of their utility.