| 133 tinsel work, and are distinguished above all, for the richness and real value of their ornaments.
Their is but one place of Protestant worship in the city, and that is a small room hired by the English; and the services, of course, are those of the Established Church of England. Our squadron has just arrived from Mahon, to winter here, and they have two chaplains aboard, who will have Protestant service in their respective vessels every Sabbath, Mahon has long been our Naval depot in the Mediterranean, and furnishes one of the best harbors in the South of Europe for vessels of war. But the inhabitants are a lawless set; and assassinations of our men have become so frequent, while the police is so remiss, that Commodore Morgan told me he would stay no longer. He had just lost an officer by the knife of an assassin; and he deemed it wrong to expose the lives of his men and officers where the government could neither furnish security, nor grant redress. His lady informed me that this lawlessness was owing to the disbanding of a Spanish regiment on the island, which lived only by crime. Our fleet has never wintered here, on account of the harbor; but it must be perfectly safe. The 74 gun ship Columbus is moored, where, as the captain told me, if she can be driven ashore, she may go.-The purser said he hoped our Government would remove the Naval depot from Mahon, as the society and customs of the place were almost sure to ruin the young officers of the vessels.
The Genoese took it as a great compliment to have one of our largest vessels of the line, bearing the name of their great Navigator, enter the harbor. Genoa has the strictest police regulations; and the allurements to vice are less than in any other city of Italy, or perhaps of Southern Europe. Hence its moral influence on our Navy would be far preferable to that it has hitherto been exposed to in the Mediterranean. It was extremely gratifying to my feelings, as an American, to see so gallant a ship enter the harbor and send her salute echoing amid these old time-worn palaces. The Congress and Fairfield will be here soon, and then we shall have more naval force in the harbor than the whole Sardinian Government can muster.
The United States Consul and myself had visited Italy together, for our health; and finding Genoa too damp and cold, took a palace six miles out of the city, so exposed to the sun, and so sheltered from the tramoutane, that flowers bloom in the garden the winter through. The Vice Consul, on the arrival of our squadron, immediately despatched [dispatched] a messenger to the Consul. We rode to town together, expecting to go aboard that afternoon; but finding it too late, and that the boat which had been waiting with the officer on shore two hours, had returned, it was deferred till next day. I left the Consul in town, and returned to our palace.-The next day I had fixed to ascend Mount Gazza, on which, it was said, there was a large cavern filled with the most beautiful stalactites, almost equal in beauty, to agate. Our valet was sent to town, and so I took a Genoese guide, with basket and hammer in his hand and started off. At the outset I found I had made a great mistake, for he could talk nothing but Genoese; and for the first two or three miles, I could not make him understand even what 'ca verna' meant. I soon, however, as the Yankees say, 'got the hang of his lingo,' and could understand him very well. For six weary miles we trudged on over a path where a mule would have broke his neck, till at length we reached a lofty summit, that seemed to overlook creation; when to my astonishment, my guide had called a grotto a cave, while the grotto was simply a chapel erected to the Madonna on that far up desolote [desolate] peak, by the people of Sestri, to protect their village. In the front, under an archway, stood the Madonna herself, about 20 feet high, I should judge-at least her little finger was as big as my arm-with her hands spread out over the distant village that lay sleeping quietly in the sunshine below. In the valley it was so warm, that I had sought the shade for shelter; but the ice was round where I stood. Below me was Genoa, Nervi, Sempeerniraniso, Cœneliania, Pegli, Voltri-palaces, orange groves, vineyards, and the broad gulf dotted with white sails, till the eye wearied with expanding prospect. On my right, ridge on ridge, peak above peak, towered away the Mountain of Piedmont, with their snow summits white as piles of silver, against the clear blue sky. Behind me were rolled along the heavens, mountains as black and barren as the top of Horeb, stretching on to Turin, with nothing to relieve the dismal prospect but two fortresses, perched on the very top of two sharp peaks, and the spire of a church, faintly pencilled [penciled] against the heavens-one created to protect the road in the interior by cannon, and the other to the Madonna, who, from that immense height, was supposed to protect the passage by divine aid. Disappointed in my cavern, I was, however, repaid by the prospect I had enjoyed. The mountain furnishes some of the finest specimens of Asbestos. As I sat mid-way down it, gathering some very beautiful ones, I heard the thunder of cannon as the echo rolled over the bay, and slowly passed up the deep ravines around me, and soon after saw the smoke spreading itself upon the atmosphere. It was the salute of the ship of war to our Consul, as
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