University of Virginia Library

54. LETTER LIV.

With the intention of returning to Rome for the
ceremonies of the holy week, I have merely passed
through on my way to Naples. We left it the morning
after our arrival, going by the “Appian way,” to
Mount Albano, which borders the Campagna on the
south, at a distance of fifteen miles. This celebrated
road is lined with the ruined tombs of the Romans.
Off at the right, some four or five miles from the city,
rises the fortress-like tomb of Cecilia Metella, so exquisitely
mused upon by Childe Harold. This, says
Sismondi, with the tombs of Adrian and Augustus,
became fortresses of banditti, in the thirteenth century,
and were taken by Brancallone, the Bolognese
governor of Rome, who hanged the marauders from
the walls. It looks little like “a woman's grave.”

We changed horses at the pretty village of Albano,
and, on leaving it, passed an ancient mausoleum, believed
to be the tomb of the Curiatii who fought the
Horatii on this spot. It is a large structure, and had
originally four pyramids on the corners, two of which
only remain.

A mile from Albano lies Aricia, in a country of the
loveliest rural beauty. Here was the famous temple
of Diana, and here were the lake and grove sacred to
the “virgin huntress,” and consecrated as her home
by peculiar worship. The fountain of Egeria is here,
where Numa communed with the nymph, and the
lake of Nemi, on the borders of which the temple
stood, and which was called Dian's mirror (speculum
Dianœ), is at this day, perhaps, one of the sweetest
gems of natural scenery in the world.

We slept at Velletri, a pretty town of some twelve
thousand inhabitants, which stands on a hill-side,
leaning down to the Pontine marshes. It was one of
the grand days of carnival, and the streets were full of
masks, walking up and down in their ridiculous
dresses, and committing every sort of foolery. The
next morning, by daylight, we were upon the Pontine

marshes, the long thirty miles level of which we
passed in an unbroken trot, one part of a day's journey
of seventy-five miles, done by the same horses, at
the rate of six miles in the hour! They are small,
compact animals, and look in good condition, though
they do as much habitually.

At a distance of fifteen miles from Velletri, we
passed a convent, which is built opposite the spot
where St. Paul was met by his friends, on his journey
from the seaside to Rome. The canal upon which
Horace embarked on his celebrated journey to Brundusium,
runs parallel with the road for its whole distance.
This marshy desert is inhabited by a race of
as wretched beings, perhaps, as are to be found upon
the face of the earth. The pestiferous miasma of the
pools is certain destruction to health, and the few who
are needed at the distant post-houses, crawl out to the
road-side like so many victims from a pest-house,
stooping with weakness, hollow-eyed, and apparently
insensible to everything. The feathered race seems
exempt from its influence, and the quantities of game
of every known description are incredible. The
ground was alive with wild geese, turkeys, pigeons,
plover, ducks, and numerous birds we did not know,
as far as the eye could distinguish. The travelling
books caution against sleeping in the carriage while
passing these marshes, but we found it next to impossible
to resist the heavy drowsiness of the air.

At Terracina the marshes end, and the long avenue
of elms terminates at the foot of a romantic precipice,
which is washed by the Mediterranean. The town
is most picturesquely built between the rocky wall
and the sea. We dined with the hollow murmur of
the surf in our ears, and then, presenting our passports,
entered the kingdom of Naples. This Terracina,
by the way, was the ancient Anxur, which Horace
describes in his line—

For twenty or thirty miles before arriving at Terracina,
we had seen before us the headland of Circœum,
lying like a mountain island off the shore. It is
usually called San Felice, from the small town seated
upon it. This was the ancient abode of the “daughter
of the sun,” and here were imprisoned, according
to Homer, the champions of Ulysses, after their
metamorphoses.

From Terracina to Fondi, we followed the old Appian
way, a road hedged with flowering myrtles and
orange trees laden with fruit. Fondi itself is dirtier
than imagination could picture it, and the scowling
men in the streets look like myrmidons of Fra Diavolo,
their celebrated countryman. This town, however,
was the scene of the romantic story of the beautful
Julia Gonzaga, and was destroyed by the corsair Barbarossa,
who had intended to present the rarest beauty
of Italy to the sultan. It was to the rocky mountains
above the town that she escaped in her night-dress,
and lay concealed till the pirate's departure.

In leaving Fondi, we passed the ruined walls of a
garden said to have belonged to Cicero, whose tomb
is only three leagues distant. Night came on before
we reached the tomb, and we were compelled to promise
ourselves a pilgrimage to it on our return.

We slept at Mola, and here Cicero was assassinated.
The ruins of his country-house are still here. The
town lies in the lap of a graceful bay, and in all Italy,
it is said, there is no spot more favored by nature.
The mountains shelter it from the winds of the north;
the soil produces, spontaneously, the orange, the
myrtle, the olive, delicious grapes, jasmine, and many
odoriferous herbs. This and its neighborhood was
called, by the great orator and statesman who selected
it for his retreat, “the most beautiful patrimony of the
Romans.” The Mediterranean spreads out from its
bosom, the lovely islands near Naples bound its view,
Vesuvius sends up its smoke and fire in the south,
and back from its hills stretches a country fertile and
beautiful as a paradise. This is a place of great resort
for the English and other travellers in the summer.
The old palaces are turned into hotels, and we entered
our inn through an avenue of shrubs that must have
been planted and trimmed for a century.

We left Mola before dawn and crossed the small
river Garigliano as the sun rose. A short distance
from the southern bank, we found ourselves in the
midst of ruins, the golden beams of the sun pouring
upon us through the arches of some once magnificent
structure, whose area is now crossed by the road.
This was the ancient Minturna, and the ruins are
those of an amphitheatre, and a temple of Venus.
Some say that it was in the marshes about this now
waste city, that the soldier, sent by Sylla to kill Marius,
found the old hero, and, struck with his noble
mien, fell with respect at his feet.

The road soon enters a chain of hills, and the scenery
becomes enchanting. At the left of the first ascent
lies the Falernian mount, whose wines are immortalized
by Horace. It is a beautiful hill, which
throws round its shoulder to the south, and is covered
with vineyards. I dismounted and walked on while
the horses breathed at the post-house of St. Agatha,
and was overtaken by a good-natured-looking man,
mounted on a mule, of whom I made some inquiry
respecting the modern Falernian. He said it was still
the best wine of the neighborhood, but was far below
its ancient reputation, because never kept long enough
to ripen. It is at its prime from the fifteenth to the
twentieth year, and is usually drank the first or second.
My new acquaintance, I soon found, was the physician
of the two or three small villages nested about
among the hills and a man of some pretensions to
learning. I was delighted with his frank good-humor,
and a certain spice of drollery in his description of his
patients. The peasants at work in the fields saluted
him from any distance as he passed; and the pretty
contadini going to St. Agatha with their baskets on
their heads, smiled as he nodded, calling them all by
name, and I was rather amused than offended with the
inquisitiveness he manifested about my age, family,
pursuits, and even morals. His mule stopped of its
own will at the door of the apothecary of the small
village on the summit of the hill, and as the carriage
came in sight the doctor invited me, seizing my hand
with a look of friendly sincerity, to stop at St. Agatha
on my return, to shoot, and drink Falernian with
him for a month. The apothecary stopped the vetturino
at the door; and, to the astonishment of my companions
within, the doctor seized me in his arms and
kissed me on both sides of my face with a volume of
blessings and compliments which I had no breath in
my surprise to return. I have made many friends on
the road in this country of quick feelings, but the doctor
of St. Agatha had a readiness of sympathy which
threw all my former experience into the shade.

We dined at Capua, the city whose luxuries enervated
Hannibal and his soldiers—the “dives, amorosa,
felix” Capua. It is in melancholy contrast with
the description now—its streets filthy, and its people
looking the antipodes of luxury. The climate should
be the same, as we dined with open doors, and with
the branch of an orange tree heavy with fruit hanging
in at the window, in a month that with us is one of the
wintriest.

From Capua to Naples, the distance is but fifteen
miles, over a flat uninteresting country. We entered
“this third city in the world” in the middle of the afternoon,
and were immediately surrounded with beggars
of every conceivable degree of misery. We sat
an hour at the gate while our passports were recorded,
and the vetturino examined, and then passing up a noble
street, entered a dense crowd, through which was

creeping slowly a double line of carriages. The
mounted dragoons compelled our postillion to fall into
the line, and we were two hours following in a fashionable
corso with our mud-spattered vehicle and tired
horses, surrounded by all that was brilliant and gay
in Naples. It was the last day of carnival. Everybody
was abroad, and we were forced, however unwillingly
to see all the rank and beauty of the city. The
carriages in this fine climate are all open, and the ladies
were in full dress. As we entered the Toledo, the
cavalcade came to a halt, and with hats off and handkerchiefs
flying in every direction about them, the
young new-married queen of Naples rode up the middle
of the street preceded and followed by outriders in
the gayest livery. She has been married about a
month, is but seventeen, and is acknowledged to be
the most beautiful woman in the kingdom. The description
I had heard of her, though very extravagant,
had hardly done her justice. She is a little above
the middle height, with a fine lift to her head and neck,
and a countenance only less modest and maidenly than
noble.