It is gratifying to be able to communicate a piece of political
intelligence from so quiet a nook of the world as this. Don Miguel arrived
here the other day from Genoa, where you know there was a story that he
and the Duchess of Berri, a hopeful couple, were laying their heads
together. He went to pay his respects to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who is
now at Pisa, and it was said by the gossips of the place that he was
coldly received, and was given to understand that he could not be allowed
to remain in the Tuscan territory. There was probably nothing in all this.
Don Miguel has now departed for Rome, and the talk of to-day is that he
will return before the end of the winter. He is doubtless wandering about
to observe in what manner he is received at the petty courts which are
influenced by the Austrian policy, and in the mean time lying in wait for
some favorable opportunity of renewing his pretensions to the crown of
Spain.
Pisa offers a greater contrast to Florence than I had imagined could exist
between two Italian cities. This is the very seat of idleness and
slumber; while Florence, from being the residence of the Court, and from
the vast number of foreigners who throng to it, presents during several
months of the year an appearance of great bustle and animation. Four
thousand English, an American friend tells me, visit Florence every
winter, to say nothing of the occasional residents from France, Germany,
and Russia. The number of visitors from the latter country is every year
increasing, and the echoes of the Florence gallery have been taught to
repeat the strange accents of the Sclavonic. Let me give you the history
of a fine day in October, passed at the window of my lodgings on the Lung'
Arno, close to the bridge _Alla Carraja_. Waked by the jangling of all the
bells in Florence and by the noise of carriages departing loaded with
travellers, for Rome and other places in the south of Italy, I rise, dress
myself, and take my place at the window. I see crowds of men and women
from the country, the former in brown velvet jackets, and the latter in
broad-brimmed straw hats, driving donkeys loaded with panniers or
trundling hand-carts before them, heaped with grapes, figs, and all the
fruits of the orchard, the garden, and the field. They have hardly passed,
when large flocks of sheep and goats make their appearance, attended by
shepherds and their families, driven by the approach of winter from the
Appenines, and seeking the pastures of the Maremma, a rich, but, in the
summer, an unhealthy tract on the coast; The men and boys are dressed in
knee-breeches, the women in bodices, and both sexes wear capotes with
pointed hoods, and felt hats with conical crowns; they carry long staves
in their hands, and their arms are loaded with kids and lambs too young to
keep pace with their mothers.
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