CANNES, _October 8, 1858_.
Your gimcracks have arrived here without accident. I shall be in Paris
next Wednesday or Thursday. When you want your trinkets, you can come
and get them. I returned from Florence by land, and am glad to have
decided on that route. After leaving Spezzia the scenery is magnificent,
as fine, if not finer, than that found from Genoa to Nice. I am bringing
with me a lovely souvenir of Florence. It is a beautiful city. Venice is
only pretty. As for works of art, there is no comparison possible. In
Florence there are two unexcelled museums.
When you visit Pisa, I would advise you to stop at the Hôtel de la Grand
Bretagne. It is the perfection of comfort. I committed the egregious
folly, on the recommendation of a Nice newspaper, of going to see a cave
of stalactites, which was discovered by a rabbit. It is in the suburbs
of a town named Colle, in France, but only a step from the frontier. I
was obliged to crawl over the ground for an hour, in order to see a few
crystallisations more or less ridiculous, in the form of carrots or
turnips, hanging from the roof.
I found here a complete desert; all the hotels are empty, not an
Englishman in the street. It is just the time, however, to spend a few
days here. The weather is superb, just warm enough to be comfortable in
the shade, but the sun is no longer dangerous. In two months everything
will be crowded, and there will be a north-wind of the most
disagreeable kind. Travellers are stupid sheep.
Did I tell you of the quail served with rice, which I ate at Milan? It
was the most remarkable thing I discovered in that city, and is worth
the journey. I return to this country with delight, after having visited
so many others which are considered grander. The mountains of the
Estérel impressed me as smaller than the Alps, but their outlines are as
graceful as any that one can see. Enough said on the subject of my
travels.
What are your intentions for this autumn? Do you intend to bury yourself
in your Dauphiny mountains? Where you are concerned, one never knows
what to expect. You look one way and row another. Good-bye....