We left Carrara by a little mountain path to visit the Bagni di Lucca, a summer place, which once, in its days of Rouge-et-Noir celebrity, was greatly resorted to. The Principality of Lucca possessed at that period, too, its own reigning duke, and had not been annexed to Tuscany. Like all these small States, without trade or commerce, its resources were mainly derived from the Court; and, consequently, the withdrawal of the Sovereign was the death-blow to all prosperity. It would be quite beyond me to speculate on the real advantages or disadvantages resulting from this practice of absorption, but pronouncing merely from externals, I should say that the small States are great sufferers. Nothing can be sadder than the aspect of this little capital. Ruined palaces, grass-grown streets, tenantless houses, and half-empty shops are seen everywhere. Poverty--I might call it misery--on every hand. The various arts and trades cultivated had been those required by, even called into existence by, the wants of a Court. All the usages of the place had been made to conform to its courtly life and existence, and now this was gone, and all the "occupation" with it! You are not perhaps aware that this same territory of Lucca supplies nearly all of that tribe of image and organ men so well known, not only through Europe, but over the vast continent of America. They are skilful modellers naturally, and work really beautiful things in "terra cotta." They are a hardy mountain race, and, like all "montagnards," have an equal love for enterprise and an attachment to home. Thus they traverse every land and sea, they labor for years long in far-away climes, they endure hardships and privations of every kind, supported by the one thought of the day when they can return home again, and when in some high-perched mountain village--some "granuolo," or "bennabbia "--they can rest from wandering, and, seated amidst their kith and kind, tell of the wondrous things they have seen in their journeyings. It is not uncommon here, in spots the very wildest and least visited, to find a volume in English or French on the shelf of some humble cottage: now it is perhaps a print, or an engraving of some English landscape,--a spot, doubtless, endeared by some especial recollection,--and not unfrequently a bird from Mexico--a bright-winged parrot from the Brazils--shows where the wanderer's footsteps have borne him, and shows, too, how even there the thoughts of home had followed.