Once on shore, the enchantment took hold of us again. It was so sunny and bright and the streets were so attractive--all paved with small black cobbles, set in the neatest and most careful fashion. Our conveyances were waiting just at the end of the pier, and they were, I believe, the most curious conveyances in the world. They were not carriages or carts or wheeled vehicles of any sort, but sleds--here in a land of eternal summer--sleds with enclosed tops, and drawn by oxen. Their drivers were grave, whiskered men who motioned us to get in; after which we started, and they began greasing the runners as we went along. They did this by putting a grease-soaked rag in front of a runner now and then and driving over it. I don't think an American would do it that way. He would take a barrel of soft soap and a broom and lubricate the whole street. Their way is neater, and about as effective, I suppose; besides, when they have been doing it another three hundred years or so, they will have some grease on these streets, too. Already one may see indications of it here and there. Our course was uphill, and we ascended along a panorama of sunny life and tinted flower-hung walls to the outskirts of that neatest and most charming of cities--continuously expressing our delight in the general attractiveness of everything: the wonderfully laid streets; the really beautiful sidewalks of very tiny vari-colored cobbles all set in perfect mosaic patterns; the glow and bloom of summer everywhere. We admired even the persistent little beggars who ran along on both sides of the sleds, throwing camellias into our laps, crying out, "Penny! Penny!" their one English word--hopping, dancing, beseeching, and refusing to be comforted. We gave to the first of these tormentors, but it was not a good way to get rid of them. It was like putting out molasses to satisfy a few flies. A dozen more were around us, going on in a most disturbing manner. Our driver finally dispersed them by making some terrific motions with his whip-handle. We were at the outskirts at last, but only at the beginning of the real climb. A funicular railway takes one up farther, and presently we are ascending straight to Paradise, it seemed to us, by a way that led through a perfect wilderness of beauty--flower, foliage, and waving green, with tiny stucco houses set in tangled gardens and slopes of cane--while below and beyond lay the city and the harbor and our ship at anchor on the violet sea.