by the late Archbishop of Brindisi; and attached to it is a small museum, containing a tolerable collection of ancient vases and coins. I was introduced to the librarian, who is a high dignitary of the church, and along with him was the chief military authority of Brindisi. It never occurred to me that they should be anything but men of principle and honour; the last thing that would have been suggested to my mind was that they were intending to act the part of spies on my words and actions. I had nothing, indeed, to conceal; their conduct, however, was not the less mean and contemptible. Again it was the Greek revolution they led me to speak of, and as I believed myself to be conversing with gentlemen, when they expressed a desire to know what were the last events that had come to my ears, I had no more hesitation of telling them than I would have in relating to you all that I had heard. I have no doubt that I again expressed my good wishes for the success of the Greeks. You may imagine my surprise and indignation to find that this clerical spy went to the head of the police, and denounced the conversation into which he had seduced me. I verily believe that the fools would have arrested me, if I had not been under the protection of the sotto-intendente—the chief magistrate of Brindisi-who has spoken to me on the subject, and requested me, for his own sake, to avoid that subject, and to be cautious in expressing any opinion on political questions. Of course I expressed great regret on his account that I had said anything about the Greeks; at the same time I spoke in no measured language of the unworthy conduct of the clergyman, and hoped that I should not again meet him, as I would not fail to express to him frankly my opinion of his disgraceful conduct. At first I was amused at the suspicions of the authorities; it is now, however, getting beyond a joke. Would you believe it, that Cito has thought it necessary to write to the authorities here that a young Englishman of very suspicious character is on a visit to Brindisi, and that they must watch all my movements, reporting to him my proceedings? I then told my host how scurvily I had been treated by Cito; and as it would, of course, be his duty to report whatever I said, I begged that he would state, for his information, that I considered him a contemptible fellow for using an inoffensive traveller in the way he had done. My host laughed at my indignation, saying that he would write that I was under his complete surveillance, as I was living in his house, and could have no intercourse with any one except through his introduction. He is aware how unconstrainedly we are accustomed to speak on all subjects; but I can assure you it is quite otherwise here, and that a man has to weigh his words carefully before they are uttered. I never understood so well the meaning of the proverb, "Silence is golden." I now see the advantage of having letters of introduction to the authorities, who have in every part of Italy treated me in the most gentlemanly way, except this fellow Cito.

I spent part of the evening at the public coffee-house, where the respectable inhabitants meet for amusement, to eat ices, and play at billiards. I then proceeded to the house of Signor Monticelli, English vice-consul, where I had the honour of meeting all the principal inhabitants at supper. We spent a few hours very jovially, and some time after midnight the sotto-intendente conducted me to his hospitable house. I shall be to-morrow on my way northwards, but I have determined to

run along the coast in an open boat for a hundred miles, as I know that there is nothing to be seen on shore that will recompense the fatigue caused by the jogging of a mule.

XXVII.

THOUGH my voyage has been somewhat tedious, I have had no reason to regret the mode of conveyance I selected. I found at Brindisi a small open boat proceeding to Trani, which was close to the place where I should have wished to land, and I did not, therefore, hesitate to enter myself as passenger to that city. I took leave at mid-day of my kind host, and went on board the boat, which I found to be navigated by four men, a number disproportioned to the size of the vessel. They were good-humoured, merry creatures, and did everything they could to make me comfortable.

On leaving Brindisi, I had a better opportunity than I had yet enjoyed of seeing both the inner and outer harbours. The city was seen to lie, as it were, in the embrace of the inner harbour, which stretches along two sides of it; and it is the stagnant nature of the waters of this inner harbour which causes the malaria with which the inhabitants are tormented. Yet in the days of Ennius-who must have been well acquainted with this part of Italy, as it was within a few miles of his native village— such a disastrous state of things could not have existed, as he (Ann. vi. 53) calls it

Brundisium pulcro præcinctum præpete portu.

"Brundisium encompassed by a fine and safe harbour."

It was under a broiling mid-day sun that I embarked, and, as we rowed slowly through the waters, it was impossible to resist the feeling of languor and suffocation which the heat produced. We threaded the narrow channel which united it to the outer harbour, and here it was that Cæsar erected his works for the purpose of obstructing the entrance. Several attempts have been made to deepen the channel and clear away the stakes which Cæsar had driven in. It still remains, however, much in the same state that it has been for the last eighteen hundred years, and while the present government continues, neither this improvement nor any other of importance will ever be carried out to a successful issue. We proceeded through the outer harbour, which is protected by a group of islets, on the largest of which, called St. Andrea, stands a castle built by Alphonso I.; and in former times there was a pharos, or lighthouse, resembling that at Alexandria (Mela, ii. 7). Our passage lay between the islets and the mainland, which was low, but Brindisi, with its castle and slightly rising ground behind, appeared to great advantage.

On getting clear of the islands we found the wind to be against us, but, by taking a wide tack, the captain expected to reach Trani in fortyeight hours. On looking round the boat, I found that they had furnished themselves with oysters, which were small and ill-fed-not like the natives in which the Cockneys delight. In the luxurious times of the Romans, we are told by Pliny (xxxii. 21, 3) that the oysters of Brundisium were conveyed to the lake Avernus, near the Lucrine lake, in Campania, to be fattened; and certainly those which I saw would require some such process to render them fit for the epicure.

We directed our course far into the Adriatic. No words can express the hazy brilliancy which hung around the coast, making me at last understand Claude Lorraine, whose paintings I used to imagine were drawn from fancy and not from nature. He who has seen such a scene will never forget it. Towards sunset the land had nearly faded from our view. The sky was cloudless, and the wind did scarcely more than ruffle the surface of the waters. There was a softness in the air and a cooling freshness, which formed a pleasing contrast to the heat which had so lately tormented us. I watched the sun descend behind the mountains of the Basilicata, and soon all was wrapped in darkness. It was a glorious night as we glided lazily through the waters of the Adriatic, though I should have preferred a stiff breeze to hurry us forward. Nature, however, was worn out, and I stretched myself on the bench to sleep as I best could. At daybreak I found that we had altered our course during the night, and had again approached the shores of Italy, which appeared at the distance of four or five miles. The coast was low and studded with watch-towers, one of which the sailors called Torre d'Agnazzo, all, I believe, that remains of a place-Egnatia-well known to the readers of Horace. I could have wished to have landed if I had not known that we should have been captured by the coast-guard, and a report would have been spread that a detachment of Greek troops, under the command of a Scotchman, had attempted to land on the coast. An examination of Egnatia, where the priests may have kept up the miracle mentioned as performed here, would scarcely have rewarded me for the risk I should have run. The wind was now somewhat more favourable, and we passed gently along the coast, but towards mid-day we got completely becalmed. The boat lay motionless on the surface of the water, and the boatmen lay down to sleep. I envied them their power of enduring unhurt the rays of the sun. A couple of hours thus passed, when a ripple at last appeared, and I roused the boatmen, who quickly hoisted our sails, and we scudded again before the wind. Again becalmed, they took to their oars, and we moved slowly forward. Night at last closed in, and I rested down in the bottom of the boat, anxious to enjoy some repose before I should be prevented by the cold. When I awoke at dawn I was delighted to find that we had made great progress, and if we were not again becalmed we might expect to reach Trani towards mid-day. This was joyful intelligence, and I armed myself with patience to wait the result. For once the wind did not prove treacherous, and we entered the harbour of Trani towards eleven of the clock. The port is in the form of a circle, and has good quays. The Venetians, who occupied Trani towards the end of the fifteenth century, constructed this harbour, but the entrance, I was told by my boatmen, has long been blocked up by sand, so that none but vessels of light burden can enter. On approaching the landing-place we were at once seized hold of by a customhouse officer, and hurried off to the police-office to have our passports overhauled. After we had waited about half an hour in a miserable room, I begged one of the subordinate officers to present the compliments of an English traveller to his superior, and to say that I should be much. obliged to him if he could examine my passport and allow me to go, as I was anxious to get some repose after the fatigue of two nights in an open boat. Such a request was not unreasonable, and no gentleman

would have refused it, but the answer sent was that I must wait. Another half hour passed, and you may be sure that my temper was not improved by the delay, and that I had made up my mind to teaze the fellow in every way possible. At last I was summoned, and ushered in to a little prim, consequential man-Il Signor Mirabile-who evidently thought that all must bow before him. He looked at my passport, and began, as I knew he would, to inquire where I was going. So much I was obliged to answer, and I told him he might insert Barletta as the next town I should visit. Then, looking at me sternly, he asked why I was allowing my moustache to grow. To understand the meaning of this question, I must tell you that an incipient moustache, as I found from my plague the lieutenant at Pizzo, is considered the secret sign of the Carbonari, a political society in the country. Here he opened the door for me to poke in to him, and I said, for the same reason that he allowed his black mop to grow on his head. If a thunderbolt had fallen at his foot he could not have been more astonished; but, before he could find words to express his fury, I added that I begged to remind him that I was an Englishman, and that, while we treated all with civility, we demanded the same treatment from others. He bawled out, "Whom are you going to visit at Barletta ?" to which I answered that I would not tell him, but if he wished to know whom I would visit at Foggia, the capital of his province, he would find by looking at the address on the letter I threw before him. It was to the royal governor of the province, whom I knew to be the cousin of the Prince of Satriano. He took up his pen, and added to my passport Barletta. These squabbles with the authorities are annoying, particularly when you are conscious of perfect innocence; it shows, however, how necessary it will be that my passport be strictly in order.

I proceeded to examine Trani, which I found to have a population of somewhere about sixteen thousand. Its walls and bastions-which have been ordered to be put in a state of defence, lest the Greeks should invade the country-are sadly dilapidated; and it has a sort of citadel, which would certainly not stand a long siege. Some of the houses are handsome, but the greater part of the town is ill-built. I was much struck with the appearance of the cathedral, which is situated close to the sea, and has a spire said to be two hundred and fifty feet in height. The interior is elegant, and less gloomy than is generally found in these buildings. Some of the windows are fine specimens of Gothic architecture. It has a theatre of respectable appearance, and a public garden along the sea-shore, where the higher class of citizens assemble in the evening to enjoy the coolness of the sea breeze. I inquired for ancient remains; I could hear of none, nor was it likely, as it is evidently a town of modern date. Still, there is no doubt that it is the site of the ancient town of Turenum, mentioned in the Tabula Peutingeriana; and Pratilli, in his account of the Via Appia, states that he found eleven milestones at Trani, some of them in good preservation; of these I could hear nothing, nor yet of the inscription given by Pratilli, which states that the road from Beneventum to Brundisium was repaired at the expense of Trajan. I fear that we must consider them to have entirely disappeared in the various calamities that have overtaken this part of Italy. I was

told that ancient tombs had been discovered, and many coins. Above one of the gates was the following inscription:

Tirenus fecit, Trajanus me reparaivit,

Ergo mihi Tranum nomen uterque dedit.

This is an attempt at Latin poetry, and the reference to Trajan, no doubt, arises from the inscription to which I have referred. In the middle ages it was a town of great importance, and its inhabitants, by a diploma of Luscignan, King of Cyprus, dated 1196, had the privilege of trading with Cyprus, " sine aliquâ commercii exactione," without the payment of taxes on their goods. It was at that time an emporium for trade between the East and the states of Italy. The Genoese, Florentines, Venetians, established themselves here, and the Jews were so numerous that they had a synagogue, which produced many learned rabbi. All this is changed, and there is not a single Jew within its walls. Worn out, I returned to the locanda, where I had taken up my abode, and requested that they would give me a bottle of their best wine, when they produced what they called "Il moscato di Trani"-a wine for which the neighbourhood is famed. They spoke also of their figs as being superexcellent, but they were not yet ripe. You are, no doubt, surprised that I should not have retired to bed. I saw, however, so little appearance of comfort, that I felt no inclination to do so while I was able to move. I tried to get a curricle to Barletta, as I thought it would be less fatiguing, and I should get on quicker. Such a thing was unknown at Trani, and I had to be satisfied with a mule. The dust and heat to Barletta were most oppressive, and yet it was a beautiful ride through vineyards, groves of olive and almond trees, for nine miles. In the interior, about a dozen miles distant, I saw a hilly tract, which is wild and thinly inhabited, being covered with woods, and partly used for pasture, as it seems to have been in ancient times (Strab. vi. 283). Between these barren hills along the coast which I had just passed from Brundisium to Barletta, about seventy miles in length and ten in breadth, there is a narrow strip of land, remarkable for fertility, and which is now studded, as it was in ancient times, with a number of small towns. It is this tract which supplies the grain of Apulia.

On reaching Barletta, though I had no letter to the English viceconsul, I thought that he was the proper authority to whom I ought to make myself known, and I accordingly made my way to his house, and introduced myself as an English traveller making a tour through the south of Italy, and that I had called on him, as a servant of my country, to make inquiries on various points. He looked quite alarmed at my appearance, and seemed in no way glad to see me. These English viceconsuls through Italy are natives appointed by the consul-general at Naples to assist any English merchantmen that may touch at the port for the purposes of trade. In reality, therefore, I had no claim on his assistance, and it was clear to me that he regarded my arrival with the utmost horror. All I wished to know from him was respecting the roads to Venusia through Canosa, which was only about a dozen miles distant. He declared that he knew nothing about it, and could not tell whether there was any road to it. One thing I did find from him, and that was,