A railway has been open for some time now along the eastern Riviera: it has marred the perfection of some fair spots, but it has its conveniences, and it cannot spoil far afield. But in the days that I best remember there was no railroad to eastward, and the _Ponente_ shore had thus an advantage over the other in civilization’s eyes. There was a _strada ferrata_ to Nice some time ago, a _strada ferrata_ that some people wondered was ever made: the _vetturini_, whose trade is marred for instance, and the diligence proprietors, who can no longer count on crowding their vehicles with dust-smothered passengers, or the traveller, who has money to pay for a post-chaise, and can spare time to loiter along the road at his pleasure, enjoying the full fragrance of its loveliness, and providing food for extortion to the innkeepers. The trains never run regularly—some part of the road is always out of repair—you travel in fear of being plunged into the sea, and the carriage route is altogether spoilt. Yet it is a step in civilization. ‘What would you have?’ says the ever obsequious guard to whom one confides one’s wrongs at having been five hours longer on the road than the guide-book stated. ‘Did we go faster, you would be now in the sea: the road is not safe. Patience!’ the invariable ejaculation of an Italian when others but himself are complaining.
To anyone who knows the Cornice from Genoa to Nice the name of Pegli will not be totally strange. It is, or rather used to be, a little fishing village; used to be, for of late years there has been built in the midst of it a grand Stabilimento, whither the town’s inhabitants flock during the months of July and August for the sea-bathing. In summer it is a fashionable place; many of Genoa’s nobles divide their summer between Pegli and some inland foreign baths, whilst the _bourgeoise_ class seek their holiday first in quiet mountainous parts of Italy known best to themselves, but do not fail to return for _i Bagni_ when the rich have left things cheaper. In winter Pegli is utterly desolate, excepting for some few foreigners, mostly English, who try to make themselves comfortable in the huge marble halls of the Stabilimento, built only for coolness, in the delusion that they are safer from bronchitis because they see the sun and know it is Italy, than they would be, snug and warm, in English homes.