We were eight in the coach and our seats were very uncomfortable, for it was a large oval in shape, so that no one had a corner.

If that vehicle had been built in a country where equality was a principle hallowed by the laws, it would not have been a bad illustration.

I thought it was absurd, but I was in a foreign country, and I said nothing.

Besides, being an Italian, would it have been right for me not to admire everything which was French, and particularly in France ?--Example, an oval diligence: I respected the fashion, but I found it detestable, and the singular motion of that vehicle had the same effect upon me as the rolling of a ship in a heavy sea.

Yet it was well hung, but the worst jolting would have disturbed me less.
As the diligence undulates in the rapidity of its pace, it has been called a gondola, but I was a judge of gondolas, and I thought that there was no family likeness between the coach and the Venetian boats which, with two hearty rowers, glide along so swiftly and smoothly.