appeared to me, and then he got lost. He turned this way and that, and

finally gave it up and signified that he was going to spend the remainder

of the morning trying to find the city gate again. At that moment it

struck me that there was something familiar about the house over the way.

It was the hotel!

It was a happy thing for me that there happened to be a soldier there

that knew even as much as he did; for they say that the policy of the

government is to change the soldiery from one place to another constantly

and from country to city, so that they can not become acquainted with the

people and grow lax in their duties and enter into plots and conspiracies

with friends. My experiences of Florence were chiefly unpleasant. I

will change the subject.

At Pisa we climbed up to the top of the strangest structure the world has

any knowledge of--the Leaning Tower. As every one knows, it is in the

neighborhood of one hundred and eighty feet high--and I beg to observe

that one hundred and eighty feet reach to about the hight of four

ordinary three-story buildings piled one on top of the other, and is a

very considerable altitude for a tower of uniform thickness to aspire to,

even when it stands upright--yet this one leans more than thirteen feet

out of the perpendicular. It is seven hundred years old, but neither

history or tradition say whether it was built as it is, purposely, or

whether one of its sides has settled. There is no record that it ever

stood straight up. It is built of marble. It is an airy and a beautiful

structure, and each of its eight stories is encircled by fluted columns,

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The Innocents Abroad