These Ladies Were Quite Delighted With The Splendour And Bustle Of Milan And Particularly When I Took Them To The Scala Theatre, Where A Very Splendid Ballo Was Given, Intitled Sammi Re D'Egitto.

The scenery and decorations were magnificent, being taken from Denon's drawings of Egyptian views, and the costume was exceedingly appropriate.

My fellow travellers were much struck at the appearance of the horses on the stage and the grotesque dancing. The last scene was the most magnificent. It represented the great Pyramids, on the angles of which stood a line of soldiers from the base to the apex holding lighted torches. The coup d'oeil was enchanting. I took the ladies to see my old friend Girolamo and in fine was their cicerone every where. We remained only four days at Milan and then proceeded to Florence, where we arrived on the 7th October. We employed six days for our journey and one day we halted at Bologna. After remaining four days at Florence and taking the Radicofani road we arrived at Rome the 18th October.

At Rome I met my friend P.G. and his wife who were travelling towards Naples and I likewise made two very pleasant acquaintances, the one a Portuguese, the other a Milanese. The Milanese is a cousin of the Neapolitan minister Di M - - - ; and the Portuguese (M. de N - - - ) had been employed by his Government in a diplomatic capacity at Vienna. At Rome I engaged appartments from the 20th of December for three months and then started for Naples, with the intention of passing two months there, and returning to Rome, to be in time to witness the fete at Christmas Eve. At Velletri I met with a Jamaica family, Mr and Mrs O - - - , with their daughter and daughter-in-law; and we were strongly advised to take an escort as far as Torre tre ponti, being obliged to start very early from Velletri in order to reach Terracina before night-fall. Nothing however occurred and we arrived at Terracina without accident. The rascally innkeeper there made Mr O - - - pay forty franks for each miserable room that he occupied, and fifteen franks a head for his supper; he was very insolent with all. I was rejoiced to find that in one instance he failed in his hopes of extortion. As he is obliged by law to furnish supper and beds at a fixed price to those who travel with vetturini and are spesati, he, whenever a vetturino arrives locks up all his decent chambers and says that they are engaged, in order to keep them for those travellers who may arrive in their own carriages and whom he can fleece ad libitum. A friend of mine and his lady, who were travelling in their own carriage, had, in order to avoid this extortion, engaged with a vetturino to conduct them from Naples to Rome with his horses, but their own carriage, and, had stipulated to be spesati. Mine host of Terracina, seeing a smart carriage drive up, ordered one of his best rooms to be got ready, ushered them in himself and returnd in half an hour to ask what they would have for supper; when to his great astonishment and mortification, they referred him for the arrangement of the supper to the vetturino, saying that they were spesati. He then began to curse and swear, said that they should not have that room, and wanted to turn them out of it forcibly; but my friend Major G - - took up one of his pistols, which were lying on the table, and told the innkeeper that if he did not cease to molest them and instantly quit the room, he would blow out his brains. This threat had the desired effect, and he withdrew. It appears that this fellow has in the end outwitted himself, for most people now, who travel on this road in their own carriage, chuse to travel with a vetturino and his horses and are spesati, solely in order to avoid the extortion practised upon them.

We arrived at Naples on the 29th October without accident. A buona grazia of a scudo at the frontier obviated the delay which would otherwise have occurred in examining our baggage by the douaniers. I put up at No 1 Largo St Anna di Palazzo, near the Strada di Toledo, at the house of one Berlier, who had been a domestic of poor Murat's. The Austrian troops being now withdrawn, the military cordon of sentinels from the frontier to Naples is kept up by the Neapolitan troops; but what a contrast between the vigilance of the Austrian sentinels, and the negligence of the Neapolitans! The last time I travelled on this road, I never failed, after dusk, to hear the shout of Wer da? of the Austrian sentries, long before I came up to them, and I always found them alert. Now that the cordon was Neapolitan, I always found the sentries either asleep, or playing at cards with their companion (the sentries being double), both having left their arms at the place where they were posted. At night I have no doubt they all fall asleep, so that three or four active banditti might come and cut the throats of the whole chain of sentries in detail.

30th October, 1818.

I have begun my course of water drinking at the fountain of Sta Lucia. Since I was here the last time, the theatre of St Carlo has been finished and I went to visit it the second night after my arrival. It is a noble theatre and of immense size, larger it is said than the Scala at Milan, tho' it does not appear so. The profusion of ornament and gilding serves to diminish the appearance of its magnitude. It is probably now the most magnificent theatre in Europe. The performance was Il Babiere di Siviglia by Rossini, and afterwards a superb Ballo taken closely from Coleman's Blue-Beard and arranged as a Ballo by Vestris.

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