On the third day after my arrival, I started at four of the morning for Florence. It was dark as we rode through the streets of Bologna; and our _diligence_, piled a-top with luggage, smashed several of the oil-lamps, which dangled on cords at a dangerous proximity to the causeway. I don't know that the Bolognese would miss them, for we left the street very little, if at all, darker than we found it. I looked forward with no little interest to the day's ride, which was to lie among the dells of the Apennines, and to terminate at eve with the fair sight of the Queen of the Arno. How unlike the reality, will appear in the sequel. In half an hour we came in the dim light to a little valley, where the village bell was sweetly chiming the matins. I note the spot because I narrowly missed being an actor in a tragedy which took place here the very next morning. I may tell the story now, though I anticipate somewhat. I was sitting at the table d'hote in Florence three days after, when the gentleman on my right began to tell the company how he had travelled from Bologna on the Saturday previous, and how he and all his fellow-passengers had been robbed on the way. They had got to the spot I have indicated, when suddenly a little band of brigands, which lay in ambush by the wayside, rushed on the _diligence_. Some mounted on the front, and attended to the outside passengers; others took charge of those in the _interieur_. Now it was, when the passengers saw into what hands they had fallen, that nothing was heard but groaning in all parts of the _diligence_. Our informant, who sat next the window in the _interieur_, was seized by the collar, a long knife was held to his breast, and he was admonished to use all diligence in making over to his new acquaintance any worldly goods he had about him. He had to part with his gold watch and chain, his breast-pin, and sundry other articles of jewellery; but his purse and sovereigns he contrived to drop among the straw at the bottom of the vehicle. All the rest fared as he did, and some of them worse, for they lost their money as well as jewels. These grave proceedings were diversified by a somewhat humorous incident. The coachman had providently put his dinner in the form of a sausage, rolled in brown paper, under his seat. This is the form in which Austrian zwanzigers are commonly made up; and the brigands, fancying the coachman's sausage to be a roll of silver zwanzigers, seized on it with avidity, and bore it off in triumph. They were proceeding to rifle the baggage, when, hearing the horse-patrol approaching, they plunged into the thicket as suddenly as they had appeared. The morning chimes were sounding, as on the previous day, while this operation was going on. But what is not a little extraordinary is, that all this took place within two miles of the city gates of Bologna, where there could not be fewer than twelve thousand Austrian soldiers. But these, I presume, were too