Pisa's Four Monuments.
The four chief objects of interest at Pisa are all in a group at the northern end of the town, and a wonderfully effective group it is: the cloistered cemetery, or Camp Santo, with its fifty-five shiploads of earth from the Holy Land; the Baptistery, with its remarkable echo; the Cathedral, with the pendent lamp in the nave which suggested to Galileo the idea of the pendulum; and that wonder of the world, the white marble Tower, which leans thirteen feet out of the perpendicular. We all tried in vain to stand with heels and back to the inside of the north wall on the ground floor—it cannot be done; one falls forward at once. From the top there is a magnificent view of the city and the surrounding plain, of the mountains on the east and the sea on the west, of the city of Leghorn and the island of Elba.
From the windows of our hotel at Pisa we saw for the first time the red gold of ripe oranges shining amid their dark green leaves in the gardens, and rejoiced to think that at last we had reached a somewhat milder climate, and were now leaving rigorous winter behind us.
The journey from Pisa to Rome is a long one, and the schedule was such that we did not arrive till late at night. From the car windows we had some impressive views of the Mediterranean by moonlight, and of the solemn campagna, and, thus prepared, we crossed the Tiber at midnight, and passed through the breach in the walls which has been made for the railway, feeling, perhaps even more deeply than is usual, the thrill with which all travellers except those who are utterly devoid of imagination first enter the Eternal City.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Some Little Adventures by the Way.
December 21, 1902.
Conditions Unfavorable to Letter-writing Abroad.