TALBOT3240

Genoa
3 April

My Dear Henry

At length here we are; and I am sure you must be glad to see a new date, you must be so tired of the old one. We were detained above a week at Nice by the excessive badness of the weather at last came a fine morning & we set out, but before we got to la Turbie came on a mistral which seemed determined to blow us into the Sea. The rains had again loosened the rocks on the Corniche & near San Remo a huge piece of Mountain fell about an hour before our arrival & so entirely covered the whole road, that for some way there was no appearance of ever having been even a track. We were obliged to leave the 3 carriages under the care of Wright, ¹ Delorme & our Swiss servant (for I was afraid they would be pillaged) and scramble up the Mountain our selves, till we found the old mule path, on which we walked for several miles, and very tired we were when we got to our Albergo. ² By making interest with the Inspector of the roads, we got him to let us have a great many Men who lifted & dragged the carriages through this mauvais pas, ³ in which was no footing for horses. Besides this, all the way along the Corniche seemed more alarming than it was, because the continual rains all this Winter have washed away the side next the Sea & made it quite sideling which I thought a very disagreeable kind of slope Horatia ⁴ was frightened at some of those places, which brought on one of her terrible bleedings at the Nose, & I thought we should have been kept at that horrid Albergo in consequence We staid there some hours, and I think had no more adventures except coming down that tremendous Cabrezoppa near Finale, in the dark, Horatia having caught a cold (vexing enough after being so well at Nice) & cough, and Gwynne ⁵ being taken so ill here that we seem likely to be detained several days. She has never recovered her illness [sic] last summer at San Bartolomeo, & I fear it shook her very much, besides which she always lets her zeal for us out run discretion.

I shall be much disappointed if I do not find a letter from you at Turin. We go by Alessandria, & shall see the house where poor Angioj ⁶ met with his untimely fate. I have no notion where you are, but long very much to hear again of Constance ⁷ as you wrote in the first shock of her Mother’s loss. ⁸ Perhaps you have returned to London, so shall direct there.

The Corniche is covered with Erica Mediterranea in blossom, but the Oleanders are mostly shrivelled up or killed by the frost. In general the Spring is extremely en retard, ⁹ the trees leafless & a general winterish air very unlike Italy. Ever since we came it has been excessively cold, and cloudy, we have not yet seen le plus petit brin ¹⁰ of Genoese sun. The Peach trees are in full blow, & their bright pink contrasted with the blue mediterranean was striking all the way coming along. Horatia who is confined to the house, is consoling herself with Mazze di fiore ¹¹ composed of large double rich yellow hyacinths, any one of which would have formed the glory of the South window of the library at L. abbey. Whole fields of Narcissus we passed, smaller than ours & not so sweet, and a great many anemonies (not hortensis) or rather windflowers, the common sort.

Why are there always so many more flowers at Genoa than at Nice, where the climate is better? There is a trade in flowers here, a Vessel went yesterday to [illegible] ¹² laden with them for Churches.

Henry Fox Talbot Esq
31. Sackville Street
London
Angleterre