Then take the tip Huxleyan,
And one long swig,—and then
You'll promptly raise a pæan
To Liquid Oxygen!
FIRST IMPRESSIONS.
"There is nothing in Italy more beautiful to me than the coast-road between Genoa and Spezia." Remember these words of Dickens, in his Pictures from Italy, as I start from Pisa to see that lovely coast, and the Mediterranean, for the first time.
Pisa is sleepy, but the railway officials are wide awake. The man who sells me my ticket "forgets" one lira. This answers capitally with innocent old ladies from England or Germany. The old lady counts her change, and if she has carefully ascertained the fare by reading the price marked on her ticket, she finds at once that there is a halfpenny wanting. She never learns that this is the Government tax. "If you please," she begins; or, "Bitte," and then she goes off into—not hysterics, but French, and murmurs, "Seevooplay, je pongse vous devays avoir donnay moi un sou—er—er—more, vous comprenny?" or, "Il y a encore—er—er—fünfzig, vous savay, à moi à payer." Then the official answers, also in French, "Ah nong, Madame, ceci est la taxe doo gouvernemang sul biglietto, capisce?"
Whereupon the old lady is so agitated by the thought that she has wrongfully accused him of stealing a soldo, that she never notices that he has withheld a lira. If she counts her money later in the day, she will blame those nasty lira notes, which stick together so, that she must have given two somewhere instead of one. But the railway clerk is also prepared for any more exacting stranger, and holds the extra note ready for him. The clerk at Pisa does so, handing it to me, without a word of objection or explanation, as soon as I ask for it. The system is as perfect as it is simple. Having obtained my change, I start for the Mediterranean.