It was an inexpressible desolation to think that we might
never again see those we loved. No one knows how much one thinks, and
how rapidly, in such hours.
In the Naples boat that was sunk a short time ago, the women perished
in a dreadful way. The shock threw the chimney directly across the
egress from below, so that they could not get on deck, and they were
all drowned in the cabin.
We went limping along with one broken limb till the next day about
eleven, when we reached Civita Vecchia, where there were two hours
more of delay about passports. Then we, that is, Mary and I, and a Dr.
Edison from Philadelphia, with his son Alfred, took a carriage to
Rome, but they gave us a miserable thing that looked as if it had been
made soon after the deluge. About eight o'clock at night, on a lonely
stretch of road, the wheel came off. We got out, and our postilions
stood silently regarding matters. None of us could speak Italian, they
could not speak French; but the driver at last conveyed the idea that
for five francs he could get a man to come and mend the wheel. The
five francs were promised, and he untackled a horse and rode off. Mary
and I walked up and down the dark, desolate road, occasionally
reminding each other that we were on classic ground, and laughing at
the oddity of our lonely, starlight promenade. After a while our
driver came back, Tag, Rag, and Bobtail at his heels.
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