While at the post-restante, we experienced a singular example of the persistency and malevolence of the typical Italian beggar. This time it was a woman and her child, both extremely dirty, the latter evidently alive with vermin. The woman, on my wife's refusing to give her anything, deliberately told her poor neglected child to rub up against her—in order, no doubt, to communicate some of her infirmity. To relieve only a portion of the beggars of all kinds who pursue you wherever you go in Italy, although this pest has been greatly reduced of late years, would leave you with very little time or money.
On returning, we had a fine view of Pisa. In the distance it appears like a city of white marble, with its tower leaning at one end, and the blue mountains far away in the background, looking, however, much nearer than is actually the case. Distance is almost annihilated in this clear, dry, Italian atmosphere, which also to a great extent prevents decay, the most ancient buildings looking often singularly fresh. "Antiquity refuses to look ancient in Italy; it insists on retaining its youthful aspect."
The Torre del Fame, or "Tower of Famine," where Ugolino and his sons were starved to death, stood "a littel out" of Pisa, as old Chaucer has it, but the very site of this monument of cruel tyranny and vengeance is now lost, or at any rate apocryphal.
We were really glad to reach the Hotel Victoria once more, our journey having been performed in the presently falling rain. There is much of interest in this old city, but our time was limited, and we were compelled to press on towards the south, and therefore left on the evening of the second day for Rome, the weather clearing up just about the time of our departure.
The Pisans have a significant motto:
"Pisa pensa a chi posa."
(Pisa sits ill
On those who sit still.)
We did not, however, stay long enough in the town to experience the truth of the aphorism.