Charles Dickens' Works - 1885 Author:Charles Dickens Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: —except that they certainly are not to be suspeited of brocma or any otbi instrument of cleanliness. Neither are the pigskins, in common use to hold wine, and hu... more »ng out in the sun in all directions, by any means ornamental, as they always pre wire the form of very bloated pigs, with their heads and ieg :nt off, dangling upside-down by their own tails. These towns, as they are seen in the approach, howevei : nestling, with their clustering roofs and towers, araong trees on it-cp-hfll sides, or built upon the brink of noble bays : ire charming. The vegetation is, everywhere, luxuriant and beau- (iful, and the Palm tree makes a. novel feature in the novel scenery. In one town, San Remo—a most extraordinary place, Ouilt on gloomy open arches, so that one might ramble underneath the whole town—there are pretty terrace gardens; in other towns, there is the clang of shipwrights' hammers, and the building of small vessels on the beach. In some of the broad bays, the fleets of Europe might ride at anchor. In every case, each little group of houses presents, in the distance, some enchanting confusion of picturesque and fanciful shapes. The road itself—now high above the glittering sea, which breaks against the foot of the precipice: now turning inland to sweep the shore of a bay: now crossing the stony bed of a mountain stream : now low down on the beach : now winding among riven rocks of many forms and colours : now chequered by a solitary mined tower, one of a chain of towers built, in old time, to protect the coast from the invasions of the Barbary Corsairs—presents new beauties every moment. When its own striking scenery is passed, and it trails on through a long line of suburb, lying on the flat sea-shore, to Genoa, then, the changing glimpses of that noble city and its harbour, a...« less