We passed palaces galore in Genoa, but we had only time to glance in, except at the Fieschi, where we lunched, and later were shown the rooms where the famous conspiracy took place. I don't know what the conspiracy was, but the guide-book speaks of it as "the famous conspiracy," so everybody but me will know just which one is meant. It probably concerned the Ghibellines and the Guelphs, and had strangling in it and poison—three kinds, slow, medium, and swift—these features being usually identified with the early Italian school.
The dim, mysterious streets of Genoa interested us—many of the houses frescoed outside—and the old city gates, dating back to the crusade; also some English signs, one of which said:
DINNER 3 LIRA, WINE ENCLOSED,
and another:
MILK FOR SALE, OR TO LET.
I am in favor of these people learning English, but not too well. The picturesque standard of those signs is about right.
Our new passengers were crowding aboard the ship when we returned. They were a polyglot assortment, English, German, French, Hungarian—a happy-looking lot, certainly, and eager for the housing and comfort of the ship. But one dear old soul, a German music-master—any one could tell that at first glance—was in no hurry for the cabin. He had been looking forward to that trip. Perhaps this was his first sight of the sea and shipping and all the things he had wanted so long. He came to where I was looking over the rail, his head bare, his white hair blowing in the wind. He looked at me anxiously.
"Haben Sie Deutsch?" he asked.
I confessed that I still had a small broken assortment of German on hand, such as it was. He pointed excitedly to a vessel lying near us—a ship with an undecipherable name in the Greek character.
"Greek," he said, "it is Greek—a vessel from Greece!"