In summer we sometimes made excursions to avoid the heat of Florence. One year we went to Valombrosa and the convents of La Vernia, and Camaldoli, which are now suppressed. We travelled on mules or ponies, as the mountain paths are impracticable to carriages. I was disappointed in Valombrosa itself, but the road to it is beautiful. La Vernia is highly picturesque, there we remained two days, which I spent in drawing. The trees round the convent formed a striking contrast to the arid cliffs we had passed on the road. The monks were naturally delighted to see strangers. They belonged to the order of St. Francis, and each in his turn wandered over the country begging and living on the industry of others. We did not pay for our food and lodging, but left much more than an equivalent in the poor-box. Somerville slept in the convent, and we ladies were lodged in the so-called _Foresteria_ outside; but even Somerville was not admitted into the _clausura_ at Camaldoli, for the monks make a vow of perpetual silence and solitude. Each had his little separate hut and garden, and some distance above the convent, on the slopes of the Apennines, they had an establishment called the _Eremo_, for those who sought for even greater solitude. The people told us that in winter, when deep snow covers the whole place, wolves are often seen prowling about. Not far from the Eremo there is a place from whence both the Mediterranean and the Adriatic can be seen. We occasionally went for sea-bathing to Viareggio, which is built on a flat sandy beach. The loose sand is drifted by the wind into low hillocks, and bound together by coarse grass thickly coated with silex. Among this and other plants a lovely white amaryllis, the _Pancratium Maritimum_, with a sweet and powerful perfume, springs up. We often tried to get the bulb, but it lay too deep under the sand. One evening we had gone a long way in search of these flowers, and sat down to rest, though it was beginning to be dark. We had not sat many minutes when we were surrounded by a number of what we supposed to be bats trying to get at the flowers we had gathered, but at length we discovered that they were enormous moths, which followed us home, and actually flew into the room to soar over the flowers and suck the honey with their long probosces. They were beautiful creatures with large red eyes on their wings. * * * * *