_August 4._--Sunday evening I walked from Bocken to Zurich to take the train for my new post at Rome. Walked along the Albis hills above the lake, ten miles. It was a delightful summer evening and the view of mountains and lake seemed finer than ever before. I could not help stopping many times to turn round and drink in the glorious scene, possibly for the last time. It was the only time I ever shed tears on leaving a scene of beauty. Besides I was leaving Switzerland, where I had had fifteen happy years. It was a dangerous time to go to Italy. The cholera was raging in Spezia not less than in Marseilles and Toulon. Many Italians were flying home from the scourge-stricken districts, and at the last moment I learned that a quarantine had been established on the Italian frontier. I hoped, however, to get through at a little village on Lake Maggiore. To my surprise all the lake region was filled with guards and I was soon arrested and cooped up with a thousand others at an old sawmill by the lake. For ten long days I walked alone up and down the upper floor of that big sawmill, every hour expecting the cholera to break out among the crowd of refugees down in the yard. Once a day a guard was sent to conduct me down to the lake, where I could go in and swim. What a treat that was for me! The guard stood on the shore with fixed bayonet, watching that I did not swim out too far and get away. Mrs. Terry, our good American friend, happened to be spending the summer in the mountains near by. She heard of me and, like a good Samaritan, brought me grapes and other delicacies. We could only stand and talk to each other at a distance with the line of guards between us. One morning I received a great big document, it looked like a college diploma, saying that I had finished with the quarantine and could proceed on my way. In the early morning twilight I crossed beautiful Lake Maggiore in a row boat, and like a bird let loose from its cage flew away to Rome. Once on a time when my wife and I had been in Rome visiting, a lady friend said to us just as we were about leaving: “Come first with me to the fountain of Trevi, throw a penny into the water, and you will return to Rome.” We went one beautiful moonlight night and tossed our coins into the fountain. And now, sure enough, here I was again in the Eternal City. The officials of the consulate met me at the train. I went through another terrible fumigation for the cholera, and was soon settled down to live in Italy. The office was at once moved to Palazzo Mariani, 30 Via Venti Settembre, and there later we made our home, when it was safe for my family to follow me.