after six o’clock we arrived at Genoa, the train slackening speed as it passed amidst ranges of lofty buildings, which looked all the more grand that our eyes for so long had been unaccustomed to the dimensions of a town so large. GENOA. For many miles before arrival, we could, from the railway carriage windows, descry the ‘superb’ city with its tall lighthouse standing like a sentinel in advance. But one loses much in arriving by railway instead of by sea. The view had upon entering Genoa for the first time by sea is always spoken of as magnificent, and it must necessarily be very striking. The large natural basin which forms the port, protected by two long moles or breakwaters, emanating from each side like two arms, forms a semicircle nearly two miles in diameter, the east end terminated by the lighthouse, said to be 520 feet high above the level of the sea, and the west end crowned by the large and lofty Church of St. Maria de Carignano. From the harbour, filled with shipping, the ground rises all round to a height of 500 or 600 feet in steep slopes, upon which the city is built; a line of warehouses or other great white buildings, connected no doubt for the most part, if not altogether, with the trade of the port, forms the front rank, and gives an imposing facing to the whole. The buildings on the west side, however, exhibit but a slender cordon: the compact mass of the city lies upon the hill–slopes and hills of the east side, which extend outward considerably to the south of the east mole. The view, therefore, on arriving by sea, must be that of looking upon one–half of the sloping tiers of a gigantic amphitheatre; while backward from the city, which is surrounded by a double wall or line of fortification, the Apennines rise in still higher slopes, bold and stern, and probably afford some protection from the north winds. Thus looks the famous city, once thriving by commerce, and powerful, till a spirited foreign policy led, as its natural consequences, to expensive wars, to weakness and decay. It revived, however, in time, and manifests a scene of peaceful busy industry, conferring upon it the position of being the first commercial town of Italy. * * * * *