It may be conceded that there is some risk to run.
I next find myself in a coach, with four horses harnessed to it,
trundling along the road from Civita Vecchia to Rome; for of Monaco I
recall nothing, nor of Leghorn; and though we passed within sight of
Elba, I saw only a lonely island on our starboard beam. As for the
coach, it was a necessity, if we would continue our journey, for the
railroad was still in the future in 1858. The coach-road was not only
as rugged and uneasy as it had been any time during the past three
hundred years, but it was outrageously infested by banditti; and,
indeed, a robbery had taken place on it only a week or two before. For
miles and miles on end it was totally destitute of dwellings, and
those that we saw might well have been the harboring-places of
iniquity. Moreover, we were so long delayed in making our start that
it was already afternoon before we were under way, and finally one of
our horses gave out ere we were many miles advanced, compelling us to
hobble along for the remainder of the trip at reduced speed. As the
shades of evening began to fall, we saw at intervals sundry persons
lurking along the roadway, clad in long cloaks and conical hats, with
the suggestion of the barrel of a musket about them, and it is
probable that we were preserved from a tragic fate only by the
fortunate accident that we were just behind the mail-coach and might
theoretically have hailed it for help had we been attacked.
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