THE Carnival had passed: Holy Week had not begun. The Vetturini who had crowded with their loads of French, German, and English, out of the Porta Maggiore, the Porta San Giovanni, and the Porta del Popolo, had come back empty and dusty to Rome. The streets were quiet: the Piazza d' Espagne had grown dull. Two months had made me half tired of the Capitol-its lions of basalt, and the blind beggar on his cross-legged chair, half up the steps. I was tired of the jokes of lame Pietro at the Lepré; and tired (dare I say it?) of standing with the gay crowd on the Pincian hill, to see the sun go down behind St. Peter's, and stream in a crimson glory through the windows of its giant dome. I had tired of the mischievous pranks of little Cesare at home and tired (forgive me, Enrica) of looking into the pretty Italian eyes of my landlady's daughter. And I had looked longingly, many a day, from the top of the Capitol, from the top of St. Peters, and from the top of the Janiculan hill, over the long line of Appenines, where the villas of Frascati shine. I had gone up, and lounged, in a Roman winter's sun, about the foot of the Pauline fountain, with Shakspeare in my hand, and read Coriolanus in the sight of Corioli. And in the yard of the Convent of Monte Verde, above the Tiber and the city, with the Eneid before me, and the hills of Albano and Alba Longa in my eye, I have repeated-with a half glance at the narrow windows, that the monks were not pressing on my crazy love

and dabble my hands in the waters of the Lake, and stand on the hill top whence Juno surveyed the combat, (Laurentum Troumque acies,) and wander down the long white streets of Tusculum ?"

My landlord, a tall, sallow-faced lean man, with a bony hand, shrugged his shoulders, when I told him I was going to the mountains and wanted a guide. His wife said it would be cold on the hills, for the winter was not ended; Enrica said it would be warm in the valleys, for the spring was coming; the old man drummed with his fingers on the table, and shrugged his shoulders again, but said nothing. My landlady said I could not ride; Česare said it would be hard walking; Enrica asked Papa if there would be any danger; and again the old man shrugged his shoulders. Again, I asked him, if he knew a man who would serve me as guide among the Appenines: and finding me determined, he shrugged his shoulders, and said he would find one the next day.

The next day came, and the landlady showed into my room a stout fellow in a brown jacket and white hat, with a broad grin upon his face, who sidled up to the table and stood looking at me, as if I were king, and he waiting for the slap of knighthood.

"Bon uomo" said I, "do you know the country about Subiaco, and the mountain paths?"

"Si, Signore."

"Can you take me over them safely, and show me their wildest parts?" "Si, Signore."

"And you will serve me well ?”

66

Benissimo, Signore."

And 1 bargained with him for five pauls a day, and we were to start on Monday. I bought a map of the Campagna, and its heights around, at Monaldinis, and put a spy-glass, and guide book, and change of linen, in a little carpet bag, and doffed my Roman, and put on my Swiss dress, and bade them all at home good-by, and was at the Piazza near the Monte Citorio, from which the

vetture men go out to Tivoli early on Monday afternoon,

-ready for the mountains.

My guide, Filippo, made his appearance punctually and smiling. He had a big wine flask swung over his neck, and my little carpet-bag in his hand. I had taken the two seats of the cabriolet for Tivoli, but a young Venetian artist, who wanted the views over the Campagna as we passed along, asked the favor of the seat beside me; and Filippo, with a shrug, went inside, where he sat, with a demure face, between a couple of Dominican Friars. By the forum of Trajan, through the narrow and dirty streets-the vetturino shouting amid the clatter of the wheels-now, to some drowsy driver of the wine cartsnow, to some group of playing children, or talking peasantry in slouch hats-we whirled under the deep shadow of San Maggiore. On we passed up the straight Strada beyond, and out upon the spreading Campagna, through the Porta di San

Lorenzo.

"Noi siamo tutti schiave," said the Venetian, as I fell into conversation with him, and asked him of the Austrian rule; and he spoke bitterly of what they were, and glowingly of what they had been; and he listened with an incredulous stare to what I told him of liberty in America, and he gave my earnest declarations-so earnest that the postillion turned half round to look at me-the most touching of all comments, a sigh. He was as much a stranger as myself to the country about Rome, and we looked together, though with different emotions, upon the great blocks of travestine over which we sometimes rode, and which the cochiere assured us were remnants of the old Via Tiburtina. We clattered over the Ponte Mammolo, under which is the Anio-all the while through the rolling surface of the Campagna-all the while in sight of Soracte to the left and the Appenines in front, on one of whose ledges, just over the plain, the white villas of Tivoli became every moment nearer and clearer. We pass the Lake of Solfatera with its Tartarean smell, and the picturesque Ponte Lucano. I had secured a ducal permit for the Villa of Adrian, and my Venetian friend availed himself of my offer to join our party. It lies upon the first steppe of the mountains above the Campagna; Tivoli is above it. We left the vettura upon the plain; Filippo took

off his hat to the friars; the vetturino wished us buon viaggio, and we clambered through a ruinous gateway, and took a green foot-path that led to the Roman Emperor's villa. Theatres, and barracks, and baths, and temples, and Grecian valleys made up the wonderful company of glories that made the Villa of Adrian. The grandest remains of Roman art have been plundered from the ruins; and the ruins, covered as they are with acres of bright green turf, and century old trees cleaving to the crevices of the wall, are grandest of all. We wandered in and out, above and below, through the city of the ruins, until the sun had gone fairly down.

The Venetian was in ecstasy at the view :

"Eccola, eccola, Signore, what color in that sky! what greenness in these trees!"

I folded my arms, and looked, but could not speak. Filippo took off his hat, and came and stood beside us. The vesper bells were sounding at Tivoli, and the echoes were floating among the hills, and the broken arches of the ruin behind us, and there, there before us, was the sweeping Campagna-stretching out all the way to the horizon! And in the middle of its great waves, turned violet colored by the hues of twilight, rose the grouped towers of the Eternal City, and lording it among them all, like a giant, the black dome of St. Peters!

The vesper bell had hardly ceased sounding when we started away, but the twilight had deepened; and it was dark when we had reached the top of the hill and were going under the gateway of Santa Croce, into the dirty streets of Tivoli. Still it was up hill, and the stones under foot were round and slippery; the houses piled up darkly and high each side, and there was but a narrow strip of the sky that showed between. An occasional lamp hung suspended across the street, and the boys thronged about us clamorous to show the best locanda of the city. Half way up, we turned aside down a dark lane to seek some view of the waters that roared below; there was a low parapet wall at the end, and over it, in the black gulf, we saw, far down, a white glistening streak.

Filippo went to lodge with a friend. The Venetian and myself had two chambers upon the edge of the Cliff of the Great Fall. We talked of San Marco and the Bosphorus over the sour wine

and biscuits, until bedtime, and we were lulled to sleep by the war of the waters under our heads.

I am dreaming of Elmgrove, and shady oaks, and trout brooks, and Christmas dinners, and a troop of little cousins, when the Venetian next door, shouts "Eccola Signore, sei ore, e fa freddo.”

I rub my eyes open, and they look out upon the hills the other side of the Anio, back of Adrian's villa; and the water is roaring, and the spray rising, and mingling with the cold, gray mists of morning. Filippo has come, and puts his face, with a full grin upon it, through the door, and bids me buon giomo. We breakfast together, and go through the little gate together, that opens by the temple of Vesta, and admits to a near view of the caverns and the waterfall. Down we go strangely crooked and frightfully narrow paths, with a street urchin to guide us. In rock and out, above and below-looking into dry mouldy grottoes, and horrid caverns, through which the water seems thrust up from below, we wander until on a sudden he brings us to where the body of the river leaps its hundred feet of sparkling way into the gulf below.

In the thunder of its roar, I bade my Venetian friend adieu, and left him sitting to his sketch-book under the spray. Arrived outside the gate again, in the dirty streets, I gave the bright eyed boy-guide a paul, and told Filippo to lead on the shortest way to Subiaco; for the clock of San Andrea was striking nine, and near eight-and-twenty miles lay between us and the resting-place of the night. Filippo hesitated; he advised the road up the valley of the Anio; it was long since he had been at Tivoli, and he knew no other. I insisted upon the mountain path, and sent him away to make inquiry of a group of idle fellows behind us. He came back looking doubtfully; and I overheard him asking in an undertone if there were gente periculoso (robbers) along

the way.

Filippo" said I, nettled by his impudence and cowardice," you have deceived me, and now you are afraid."

"It is long since I was at Tivoli, Signore, but I am brave—andiamo.”

And so we pushed up the straggling street, and out of the town's gate, and were soon breathing the fresh cool air of the mountains. Two miles on, we pass remnants of an ancient aqueduct one arch still spanning the road, and hanging

Crowds of pea

festoons of ivy over it. sants picturesquely, though dirtily clad, are on their way to the Roman market, with their burthens and donkeys. Occasionally we pass a ploughman toiling in the side valleys, with instrument as uncouth as the Roman. We turn out of the car road, and break boldly up a wild path that leaves all tokens of cultivation behind. Rock, and stones huge and ragged, lie strewed over the surface at every hand; and laying aside the air of thrift pertaining to our side, and the huge arches of travestine pertaining to the Appenines, I could almost imagine myself in some quiet valley of New England. Greater wildness, however, quick succeeds to quiet, and mountains loom up thousands of feet, and old castellated towns like bird's nests are perched at the top of them; and here and there, showing itself higher up, some glistening wall of a monastery :-just the spot to lie by for an hour under some one of the blasted oak trees, in sight of the banditti habited peasantry, and read Horace Walpole's Death and Love romance. More and more bald grow the mountains,rarer and rarer the Contadini,-scraggier and thicker the stunted trees, and more and more tired we, as we went on. At an osteria on the way, my guide had bought the flask full of wine, at the exorbitant price of five baiocchi, and with this I rested a while on my carpet-bag, and mumbled a bit of poor bread I had stolen from the inn in the morning.

Then, up and on; Filippo giving me the names of the plants and trees on the way,-extravagating upon the richness of the marches of Ancona, and asking every passer-by the price of wine at the next osteria. Thus winding up, and winding down, amid scenery that would not make even a Switzer blush, we came upon the little town of Gennajo, perched upon the rock of the name. It was high up, and hard work to attain it; but the view of the hoary mountains, stretching in their wild confusion on every side, repaid the toil. I had anticipated a stop here for lunch, for it was high noon, and the sun hot; but the osterias were too filthy, and after going into the kitchen of an old hag who claimed the best of the place, where a suspicious looking fellow was eating garlic soup, we went on— still higher than the rock of the town. The path grew rougher and rougher, until I was fain to have recourse again to the cinque baiocchi wine and my carpet

bag. I sent Filippo into the valley for fresh water, and sat under a heavy armed chestnut, musing over the splendid prospect, spreading like a map pinned to the peaks of the Appenines.

They are not like American mountains-not like Scotch mountains-not like Swiss mountains. They seem, like everything Italian, to have been mown down by time-to have been scathed, like the people, by war, and desolation, and, perhaps, the judgment of Heaven. The Swiss mountains, on the contrary, seem, with all their wildness and their jagged peaks, to retain just such shapes as the Creator at first laid over them. The Appenines are broken, and blasted, and scarred :-here, a forest, but not continuous, and struggling for a livelihood, as if the brimstone fire that consumed Nineveh had withered its energies there, again, a great white scar of the broken calcareous rock, on which the moss cannot grow, and the lizards dare not creep: Again, a cliff beetling into the skies, complete in wildness, and seeming as if the pious brotherhood, whose glistening monastery flanks its skirt, had guarded it from the desolation that has swept like a whirlwind over all beside. The wayside brooks, all seem, not the gentle offspring of bountiful hills, but the remnants of something greater, whose greatness had expired;-they are turbid rills, rolling in the bottom of yawning chasms. Even the shrubs have a look, as if the Volscian warhorse had trampled them down to death, and the primroses and violets by the mountain paths, look only modestly beautiful, amid the ruin.

This may not be all an idea of the imagination, distempered by actual memories of what scenes have transpired in those hills, but fairly deducible from the fact, that all the geological formations of this vicinity bear marks of eminent volcanic changes, and seem to be such altogether as Vesuvius might be, if straggling fir trees and wayside myrtles grew up to the edge of the crater, and ivy vines hung their leaves and their dried berries down in the hole where the fire comes up. Beside this, the ruined arches and blocks of travestine, unmistakable mementoes of those, whose memory they will not soon let die, show themselves everywhere, in valley and shadow, adding yet more to the scathed appearance of the mountains; and this apparent sympathy of the two adds insensibly to ven

eration for the Latins, as if that besom of destruction, which alone could make their works tremble, could also shake to their foundations the everlasting hills.

Filippo came with the water; I fancy he had lowered the wine-flask a little at the spring, but it was large enough for two. Every angle of the walk we followed turned up rich views of far-off mountain towns, clustered upon rocks, and their tall shadows, as the sun sank, stretched by miles through the valleys. Sometimes we met a priest astride a donkey, picking his way among the broken stones, and he would give us the "servi tore," and roll the name of some of the peaks out of his fat cheeks, into a melodious flow of sound, and bless us, and (his donkey never stopping) pass on. Some old woman in green turban, would cudgel-along two moving straps of faggots with an ass between, and shriek a curse at him, as he bites at the shrubs by the way, and disappear as suddenly as she had come.

Once we went widely wrong, our path was blotted by a brook; Filippo was ignorant, and a shower was threatening, which, if it came, would cover the valleys with darkness. He shouted to some charcoal burners upon a shelf of the hills; I laughed at him, for hoping to make them hear, for they seemed no bigger than our fingers where they stood. Wonderfully clear and distinct the voice came back across the clear air of the mountain valley :

"In dietro in dietro-Signore, una miglia e mezza, e poi il mano drito sempre."

The clouds lifted, only sprinkling us; and we struggled on, amid scenery, which, if it had been other than most beautiful, could not, in the languid state of my limbs, have excited a thought. In its most beautiful part, came to my ear the sweet music of one of the pastoral pipes of the Appenines. Two shepherds in rough skin coats, were tending a flock of kids on a cliff, near a mile distant, on the other side of the valley. From them came the sound. I am no musician, but have listened to the sweetest voices of the Italian opera, and to Strauss' band on the Glacis at Vienna; but never, never do I remember listening to such bewitching melody as floated, that summer-like afternoon, across that valley of the Appenines. Filippo was as earnest as I; he had laid down his budget; his good-humored grin had changed to

something half passionate, as he strained his eyes through the soft sunshine, as if watching would quicken hearing. The shadows slanted more and more as we lingered, and the kids had begun to group together. As we went on through the valley that had its little vineyards, the sound flowed after us, and filled the air over our heads. There was not another noise to disturb it; and until the kids scrambling on the cliffs had vanished, and even the black shadows of the cliffs themselves had disappeared, the melodious echoes floated sweetly over us.

The path grew wild again, and night was coming. Hungry and tired we toiled another hour: at length, after climbing, and wishing, and looking back, and looking, still more earnestly, forward, came a sight through a cleft of the hills of the old town of Subiaco-its high castle looming above it, its olive orchards round it, its river glittering in the meadow under it, its bald, brown hills behind it.

Quick we descended the four miles that yet lay between, and crossed the Roman bridge, and looked through the smoky chambers of the first little osteria; it was too filthy, even tired as I was. The padrone scowled at me as I went out. All the way through the dirty street, to the church at the end, we went, stared at by all. I sent Filippo to inquire of an honest looking priest at the church door, and took lodgings in the house of his advice. A neat woman is always a recommendation to a stoppingplace, and one received me there. Surely, I thought, the inn is dirty enough for Filippo, and I shall feel safer if he is near me. But Filippo thought differently, and left my bag, and went out into the town, promising to be with me by sunrise. A stupid mountain girl served me presently a true Italian dinner of boiled meat, lamb's brains fried in oil and salad, with wine that was as sour as the vinegar. Afterward, I took a turn in the dark through the town ;-there are dirty and narrow streets, children and women shouting and quarreling, and sedatelooking priests glide about in their black robes. Above all the houses, the Cardinal's palace, a fortress of old times, stood proudly with lights twinkling at its windows. I wandered into the church, of huge, heavy arches; it was deeper night there than in the air; shuffling old women were groping in and out, and some kneeling yet at a side altar where only the dim lamps were burning. To make

the old pile more solemn, there was a bier in the middle, a figure or two kneeling at the foot, and half a dozen boys romping around it. A young priest presently lit a taper at the foot, and another at the head-for there was a dead man on the bier, and the parched thin features under the light of the solitary taper, looked awfully in the gloom of the great church. When the boys saw the pinched-up face, they stopped their play, and whispered, and pressed their fingers on their lips, as they looked from one to the other, and those who prayed at the foot were more earnest; but it was very, very damp in the church, and the body of the dead man seemed to make the air heavy, so I went out into the starlight again.

Filippo came to see me in the evening; I told him, if he was asked about me, to tell them I was not English, for I feared my accent might betray my speech, and in the mountains, as everywhere else, there is an idea that Gl' Inglesi sano richissimi.

The landlord made me a visit too, but his friendly talk did not prevent my fastening the door as securely as possible when I went to bed. A small opening too, in the wainscoating at the other side of the room, I was careful enough to fortify by setting against it the four-legged piece of furniture which served me both as a washstand and dressing table, and upon a corner of which I was putting down these notes, when the clock upon the great church thundered eleven.

But I slept safely and well, nor waked till my landlord called me at sunrise. Coffee and a greasy omelette waited me in the ante-room. Filippo was below with his wine flask full, and he showed me, with a triumphant grin, two little loaves of bread, he had bought at his lodgings. The host takes off his hat-he may well do it, for I paid him a town price. We trudged off down the street of Subiaco ; but stopped for a look over the terrace by the church into the valley below. The sun had just come over the hills-and the hills were mountains-and they divided and subdivided so, receiving and giving shadows, such as would make a painter die of grief, that his art was not more glorious than it is. Two hundred feet below us, was a stream roaring, and houses gray and old grouped round it, and the remnant of a bridge leaped over it. Beyond the houses, was a bright green meadow, with here and there a mountain cherry