I do not know what defence to offer for not
having visited the galleries of the Museo Civico, where by actual count
in the guide-book I missed one hundred and sixty-nine works of art,
though just how many masterpieces I am not able to say: probably one out
of every ten was a masterpiece. But, if I did not much resort to the
churches and galleries in Leghorn, I roamed gladly through its pleasant
streets and squares, and by the shores of the canals which once gave it
the name of New Venice, and which still invite the smaller shipping up
among its houses in right Venetian fashion. The streets of Leghorn are
not so straight as they are long, but many are very straight, and the
others are curved rather than crooked. The longest and straight-est were
streets of low dwelling-houses, uncommon in Italian towns, where each
family lived under its own roof with a little garden behind, and a
respective entrance, as people still mostly do in our towns. From the
force of the mid-April sun in these streets I realized what they might
be in summer, and, if I lived in Leghorn, I would rather live on the
sea-front, in one of the comfortable, square, stone villas which border
it.
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