corpses ready for it. We saw one single coarse yellow hair from

Lucrezia's head, likewise. It awoke emotions, but we still live. In

this same library we saw some drawings by Michael Angelo (these Italians

call him Mickel Angelo,) and Leonardo da Vinci. (They spell it Vinci and

pronounce it Vinchy; foreigners always spell better than they pronounce.)

We reserve our opinion of these sketches.

In another building they showed us a fresco representing some lions and

other beasts drawing chariots; and they seemed to project so far from the

wall that we took them to be sculptures. The artist had shrewdly

heightened the delusion by painting dust on the creatures' backs, as if

it had fallen there naturally and properly. Smart fellow--if it be smart

to deceive strangers.

Elsewhere we saw a huge Roman amphitheatre, with its stone seats still in

good preservation. Modernized, it is now the scene of more peaceful

recreations than the exhibition of a party of wild beasts with Christians

for dinner. Part of the time, the Milanese use it for a race track, and

at other seasons they flood it with water and have spirited yachting

regattas there. The guide told us these things, and he would hardly try

so hazardous an experiment as the telling of a falsehood, when it is all

he can do to speak the truth in English without getting the lock-jaw.

In another place we were shown a sort of summer arbor, with a fence

before it. We said that was nothing. We looked again, and saw, through

the arbor, an endless stretch of garden, and shrubbery, and grassy lawn.

205

The Innocents Abroad