After my return from Palestrina, I stayed but a few days in Rome, and again set out to visit other places in the neighbourhood. In that interval I was present at a procession to obtain rain; as the wet which I found so inconvenient at Tivoli and Subiaco, does not seem to have reached the vicinity of Rome. The Piazza in front of St. Peter’s was decorated by posts bound round with oak branches, and the portico of the church hung with crimson damask, striped with gold. The poor pope was carried round the square, kneeling, and leaning indeed upon cushions, but entirely wrapt up, except the head, in hot and heavy garments, and immoveable; he did not appear in health, and everybody seemed to compassionate him: it is a pity a wax figure could not be substituted in his place. The procession afterwards entered the church, but there was nothing remarkable in the ceremonies.

I am surprised at your incredulity about St. Peter’s toe. It is considerably worn; I intended for your satisfaction to have measured precisely the waste, but I have not yet done it. The marble foot of Michael Angelo’s Christ in the Minerva, was so much worn, that it was deemed necessary to give it a brass slipper, which begins to feel the effects of this mode of devotion; yet for one kiss on this, St. Peter must have ten. It is not however exclusively by kissing; the devotees rub it with their hands, and apply it to the forehead, before and after putting their lips to it.

My next excursion began with Frascati, where I went in a diligence of the same nature as those which run to Tivoli and Palestrina. We observed as usual, from the road, a variety of ruins, and among others, some very extensive ones at the foot of the hill, supposed to be the remains of the villa of Lucullus, but with considerable restorations of a later date. Frascati is situated on a considerable ascent, though the hill continues to rise still more behind it. At the lower part of the declivity are the remains of two villas; and at a convent a little below the town, some very extensive substructions, which dispute with those already mentioned, the honour of being the villa of Lucullus. I found here a locanda, or sort of lodging-house, and nearly opposite to it a trattoria. It is astonishing that places so much frequented as these about Rome, should be so deficient in good inns. I spent the afternoon in looking at some of the villas immediately above the town, and enjoying the beauty of the scenery; and the next morning walked to Grotto Ferrata, a delightful path, through groves of different species of oak (Quercus Robur, Cerris, and Ilex) with frequent catches of the Campagna, but without that full exposure which its naked barrenness makes disagreeable. Grotto Ferrata is a convent seated on the edge of a little valley, with some foundations, which are said to have belonged to the villa of Cicero, and boasts some very beautiful frescos of Domenichino, particularly the celebrated demoniac boy. I continued my walk as far as Marino, to see some other paintings, one of which is an admirable production of Guercino. In returning, I followed a road higher up the hill, but it would have been better to have kept lower down, where several fragments of antiquity are distinguishable.

My next walk was to Tusculum, which belongs to Lucien Buonaparte; the villa in which he usually resides is called Rufanelli. On the road, I stopt at a convent to see a crucifix painted by Guido; a little figure about six inches long painted upon a cross; and a St. Francis, by Paul Brill, which is uncommonly fine for him. The villa at Rufanelli commands a very fine view, but it is rather too elevated for picturesque beauty. About it are numerous fragments of architecture, which Lucien Buonaparte has dug up in the neighbourhood, but they are not generally in a good style. The excavations at present in hand are at the top of the hill, where the ancient town stood. There are vestiges of an amphitheatre, called by the people the school of Cicero, and some more interesting remains of a theatre, while in every part we see fragments of ancient foundations. The town was destroyed only about the year 1200, which seems almost to bring it into modern times; but these places which continue to occupy for long a period their ancient situations, are not the most favourable for antiquities. Continual changes, adapting the buildings to new purposes, destroy the ancient arrangement. The great rage for altering and renewing everything does not however seem to have taken place in Italy till the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when new churches, new convents, and new palaces, consumed the old materials with great rapidity. The ancient columns were then removed to new positions, and what was left either of Roman or Gothic, was buried in new walls, or under new decorations. We trace here the ancient streets, and can fix the position of two gates. Beyond the further gate there is a portion of the ancient city wall, of squared stones, which however divides singularly into two parts, and both parts are afterwards lost among reticulated work. Just at the division there are an ancient reservoir and fountain. The reservoir is covered with two sloping stones instead of a vault. Many curious little particulars have been discovered in these excavations, which are very interesting to a person on the spot, when the mind is excited and directed to the subject. Much of the earth thrown out from them is as complete a cinder, as if it were just ejected from Vesuvius, and the direction of the hills is such, that we might easily fancy them surrounding an enormous crater, from which the present Monte Cavo has arisen.

From Tusculum I walked to Mondragone, a vast palace of the princes Borghese, misled by a false report of ancient walls. In the afternoon I visited an ancient fragment in the town, said to be the monument of Lucullus; and they pretend that an inscription was found there to that effect, but where that inscription now is, nobody could tell me. My last object was a large circular monument, the sepulchre of Lucius Valerius Corvinus, below the town, and nearly at the foot of the hill. It seems to have been in the style of the Plautian monument, or of the Cecilia Metella.

Next morning I set out, after an early breakfast, intending to reach the summit of Monte Albano, or of Monte Cavo, which is its common name. The road at first passes among cultivated enclosures, which change as it approaches Rocca del Papa, into delightful groves of chesnut. Rocca del Papa is a village situated on a lofty pinnacle, composed of a heap of cinders, forming part of the edge of an ancient volcano. In a hot climate we feel the advantage a town enjoys in occupying these points of land; the only wonder is, that the necessity of cultivating the valleys, has not induced people to choose such as were rather less elevated; for the peasantry seem to live very much in the towns, and not each on the land he cultivates, as in England. It has been supposed that the unhealthiness of the Campagna arose from the hot days and cold nights there experienced; but the inhabitants of these places, labouring all day in the close valleys, and returning at night to their airy dwellings, must experience much greater difference; and yet all these places are reckoned perfectly healthy. From Rocca del Papa, a narrow ridge extends to the summit of the hill, and the path lies along this ridge; it is covered with wood, but nevertheless we see below us at intervals the Campi di Annibale, on the one side, forming the bottom of the ancient crater, and on the other, on a much lower level, the extended Campagna, and the city of Rome; the most conspicuous object of which is the church of St. John Lateran. The latter part of the way is along the ancient Via Triumphalis, much of the pavement of which remains. A convent has taken the place of the ancient temple of Jupiter Latialis, and a few fragments of wall, and numbers of the squared stones employed in the building attest the existence of the former edifice. There is a garden attached to the convent, occupying precisely the summit of the hill, the soil under which is said to be full of fragments. I should suppose Monte Cavo to be about as much elevated above Rome, as Ingleborough is above the little town at its base, i. e. about 2,000 or 2,200 feet, yet here is a productive garden, with fruit-trees and a fine meadow. We cease to associate the idea of mountains, with that of barrenness, which are so strongly connected in our cold and wet climate.

In descending, I followed the ancient Via Triumphalis, as far as it was traceable; but missing my way, returned almost to Rocca del Papa. I could hardly regret the error, as the walk from thence towards Albano is exceedingly beautiful, overlooking the lake and the Campagna, but in the latter part of the way, the woods become thicker, and exclude all view. Discontented with the confinement, I scrambled to the edge of the crater which contains the lake of Albano, and found a charming path among the woods on its slope, by which I continued to the ridge of the hill just above Albano, popping the pods of the bladder senna, by way of amusement, as I went along. I found an excellent inn at Albano, and after getting some dinner, returned to enjoy the view from the line of hills which surrounds this beautiful lake; the fine circular sheet of water is expanded below us; over the edge of the surrounding hills we see the Campagna, but greatly foreshortened, and Rome in the distance; on the other side is the convent of Palazzuolo, crowning its steepest and highest bank, and above that Monte Albano, covered with wood. In the way I examined the ruins of the amphitheatre, but very little remains. While looking at it I was joined by rather a shabbily dressed young man, about, I suppose, eighteen years old, who talked to me on various subjects, repeated verses of Horace and Virgil, in a manner which shewed, not only that he understood them, but was capable of entering into their beauties, and gave me afterwards some Latin verses of his own. He conducted me by a short road, as he said, to some of the ruins of the villa of Domitian, now occupied by the house and gardens of the Villa Barberini. It has been immense; but at present we find nothing remaining but great vaults and substructions; a most beautiful sunset, which I enjoyed from its terraces to the greatest advantage, made ample amends for the deficiency of the antiquities. Next morning I went to the villa of Pompey, the present Villa Doria; you know the Italians when they speak of the villa, do not mean the house, which is palazzo, palazzino, or casino, but the whole enclosure, containing, besides the small place appropriated merely to pleasure and show, a large garden cultivated for profit, and frequently vineyards, olive-grounds, and corn-fields. It was disputed at a Roman academy what constituted the difference between a villa and a vigna, and it was decided that they are the same thing. The ornamental part usually consists of a few terrace-walks, with clipt edges of bay, or sometimes shaded with ilex; and it is only a few of the principal, immediately about Rome, which considerably differ from this description. Such a villa is that of Doria at Albano, but it includes also a most delightful little bit of wood, which entirely covers the ancient ruins. The white houses of Albano, seen among the dark foliage of the venerable ilices, had the prettiest effect imaginable. Hence I walked to Castel Gandolfo, and down to the shores of the lake, which must be near 300 feet below the palace of the popes. Some fishermen were drawing their nets, but all they had caught consisted of two or three moderate sized tench, and a quantity of small fry. My principal object here was of course to see the celebrated Emissario, which as you know is an artificial subterraneous channel, of considerable length, made by the Romans to discharge the waters of the lake, and it is still the only passage they have; but the story of its formation is a very strange one. During the siege of Veii, the waters of the lake rose in dry weather to a very extraordinary elevation, so that the Romans were afraid it would overflow; terrified by the prodigy, they sent ambassadors to Delphi to learn what was to be done, and the answer enjoined them to let out the waters, but to take care that they did not flow into the sea. Now the lake is a complete crater, without any continued valley by which it could ever have found a natural outlet, and to have overflowed the edges of the basin would have required an elevation, above the present level, of I suppose 150 feet.^[10] A few trifling springs on the banks, and probably some underwater, form its permanent supplies, and the country which drains into it, is of such small extent, that I do not believe six inches of rain would raise it thirty feet from its present level, and not a fourth part of that, if the water stood nearly up to the top of its banks. Perhaps this wonderful rise proceeded from some volcanic discharge; yet the danger does not seem to have been very pressing, since the Romans had time to send to Greece for instructions. The direction of the existing channel is nearly in a line towards the shore, but the natural direction of the hollows which receive it, conduct it towards the Tiber, into which it at present flows, yet it may have been dispersed, and perhaps in summer lost before it arrived there. The whole looks very much like a scheme to procure an irrigation for some lands whose dry soil produced but little. If the lake was to be lowered 150 feet, the tapping it would be both difficult and dangerous; but if it was only necessary to lower it 15 or 20, the execution would not require any great degree of contrivance; and the soil, which is a soft rock, yielding probably in its hardest parts to the pick-axe, and yet everywhere firm enough to maintain itself, facilitated the enterprize. It is however a wonderful work; above a mile and a half in length, and 250 feet from the surface. The front of it was faced with stones, leaving a rectangular opening, covered with a large square block of peperino, which is the material of the rest of the work, and this stone being found near Albano, is likely to have been more exclusively in use here than at Rome. This is probably the original work, but in front, there is now a vault of no great extent, of the same material, but not bonded with the other, and this may perhaps have been an addition or restoration of the emperor Claudius. The water re-appears from under an arch of rubble-work, which I do not take to be very ancient, and after washing all the dirty linen of Albano, runs off, as I have said, towards the Tiber.

I have conducted you away from the lake, without mentioning to you a ruin which is here called the baths of Diana. It is composed of several parts, but the principal is a large vault, formed in an excavation in the slope of the hills. It is a delightful retreat on a hot day, and commands a beautiful view over the lake, though the richness of the vegetation immediately surrounding, hides the water too much. There are some remains, supposed to be of Thermæ, at Albano, which in certain points of view form a fine mass, but I did not see anything characteristic of their destination. Just out of the town, on the road to Naples, is a monument, which has been called the tomb of the Curiatii, but it now seems rather the fashion to consider it a monument erected to Pompey. Nibby thinks it the sepulchre of Aruns, the son of Porsenna, who lost his life in an unsuccessful attack on Aricia; and attributes another tomb to Pompey, at the opposite end of Albano, which appears to have been a tower of three stories in height, cased with marble. His chief argument for each is, that he has found no testimony to the contrary among the ancient writers. Amongst other proofs that the edifice in question is the tomb of Aruns, he quotes Varro’s description of the tomb of Porsenna, as given by Pliny. This appears to have had some resemblance to the present monument, and gives a colour to suppose it an Etruscan edifice, but does not at all connect it with Aruns. It consists of a square basement, supporting five cones, one at each angle, and a larger one in the middle. The masonry is of rubble, formed of fragments of peperino bedded in mortar, and the outside has been covered with large square blocks of peperino. If it be really Etruscan, it would serve to shew that the Romans derived their usual mode of building, i. e. a rubble mass cased with squared stones or bricks, from that people. Farther on, we find the old Appian way, now no longer used, supported to a considerable height, on a wall built of peperino; and in its neighbourhood, some vestiges of the ancient Aricia; the modern town is placed above it.

On the 11th I walked along a very pleasant, and in general a shaded road, through Aricia, or La Riccia, to Genzano. La Riccia is a very picturesque town on the top of a rock, overlooking a little hollow of its own, which probably was once the crater of a volcano, afterwards a lake, and is now a fertile and cultivated valley. Genzano is on one of the points above the Lake of Nemi. The edge of these craters, as you may easily suppose, becomes in time broken down in various places, leaving some parts higher than the rest; and one of these remaining elevated portions of the circuit, gives a situation to Genzano. Here I left the high road to Naples, and kept the road to Nemi, on the north side of the lake, pursuing, for part of my route, an ancient Roman way. The lake is very beautiful, with woody banks mixed with cultivation, and a little valley, prolonged from its upper side, is richly cultivated; but though these volcanic lakes have their charms, they are generally inferior to the more varied forms of those which do not owe their origin to such a source. It is true that the steep bank which surrounds them is not everywhere of the same height, and is occasionally broken by an advancing mass of firmer rock; yet its continuity is sufficiently perfect to produce a degree of monotony; and whichever way you view it, it is still the same round basin, and cannot present those beautiful reaches which so much enhance the charm of some of our own lakes; nor can we expect the receding lines of mountains which indicate the continuation of the valley. But the still expanse of water reflecting the dark blue sky, the rich vegetation, the dark woods which cover the slopes, the magnificent trees which hang over the water, and the rugged points which start here and there from the edge of the crater, form a landscape in which you feel it impossible to be tired of wandering. Nemi itself stands on the highest and boldest of these rocky points, yet the soil looks more like a heap of cinders than a mass of solid stone. Between Nemi and Velletri, I lost my way in the woods which here overspread the country, but I reached the latter city in good time, and took up my quarters at an inn, which was once the palace of the Lancelotti family, and at the back of which is a noble open gallery, about 120 feet long, commanding a most magnificent view over a broad valley, of the nature of the Campagna, but not so wide, and with more cultivation and more wood; and of the Volscian mountains. More to the right are the Pontine marshes, (and these are not in general naked) the long slip of woody country which divides the Campagna and the marshes from the shore, Monte Circello, and the sea. As a considerable portion of the day still remained, I procured a horse to carry me to Cora; it had only one stirrup, which was very short, and very small; and to guide it, something more like a halter than a bridle, was fastened to the head of the animal; the saddle was high and peaked. Thus equipped, I set forth on my expedition on a paved road among vineyards. After some time the pavement ceased, and I passed among pastures, and corn-fields, slightly, or not at all enclosed, but where cultivation seemed to be rather extending itself, and by a little lake, and afterwards along a shady lane, deep in mud, though for some time we have had no rain. On reaching the foot of the mountains, and coasting them by a gradual ascent towards Cora, I found the road frequently to consist of a broken-up pavement; the worst of all possible tracks, but very frequent in the cross roads of Italy. The pavement is made and left; in rainy weather a little current is formed on one side or the other, or sometimes on both; and this undermines the external stones, which soon become loose, and are displaced; and by such a process, sometimes half, sometimes the whole pavement, is worn away; a few isolated fragments still are seen, the rest is an uncertain covering of large stones. A steep descent precedes the entrance into Cora, although the town occupies a high hill. I found the streets so steep and slippery, that I was glad to get off and lead my horse. When I had reached the inn, and put my horse in the stable, I desired the landlord to give him something to eat. He called out for some hay, and down came two trusses out of the two pair of stairs window. I walked up to the room from whence this supply came, and was surprised to find that it wanted some steps of the height of a court on the side of the house, and which afforded another entrance. This may give you some idea of the inequality of the ground. Just below the town is a deep ravine, or rather a cleft in the limestone rock, and the town itself is seated on a rocky hill, of a conical form, which rises immediately from the edge of this chasm. It is almost detached from the chain of Volscian mountains, though placed in a recess amongst them. “Cora è due paesi,” said a boy to me, holding up his thumb and forefinger. The Italians never mention a number under ten, without holding up their fingers, the thumb always occupying the first place; “uno di sotto e uno di sopra.” My inn was in the lower part of the lower town, although I had found the ascent to it so troublesome. The Temple of Hercules is in a convent at the top of the upper. The portico, which has four columns in front, and two in each flank, remains tolerably perfect, and though rather too small, and rather too slender in its proportions for the exalted situation it occupies, produces a very pleasing effect. The elevation of the columns in proportion to their diameter, is not at all displeasing when we are near the edifice; and if they were stuccoed, as was probably the case, the apparent diameter would have been somewhat larger. The smallness of the architrave is much more objectionable, and the abacus also is too small. The style, as well as the proportions, is between the Greek and Roman Doric, but the columns have bases, which are hardly to be found in any other example, either Greek or Roman. These bases are so much decayed, that one cannot venture to decide on the form of the mouldings, but I think there was no fillet. The pilaster capital differs from that of the column. In the lower town there are some remains of a temple of Castor and Pollux. It is of the Corinthian order, and the foliage is in the Greek style, and in, and about it are many portions of Cyclopean walls. A Roman bridge still exists over the deep and narrow chasm I have before mentioned, and in the chasm is a mill (not ancient), where corn is ground for the inhabitants of Cora, after heavy rains; but it is only in such circumstances that there is any water in the hollow. There are some cloisters of the middle ages in the church of Santa Olivia, which deserve to be looked at. They are in two stories, with twice as many arches in the upper as the lower, all resting upon columns; there is a good space between the stories, but it wants a little more ornament. In one church, the font is an ancient altar, with rams’ heads at the corners.

After looking over these antiquities on the evening of my arrival, and the following morning, I returned to Velletri. I had been able to get coffee for my breakfast at Cora, but no milk, which in a mountainous country rather surprised me; but for luncheon I obtained some ricotta, which is goat’s milk curd, boiled I believe, and pressed into little baskets. On the 13th I left the high road, and crossed the fields by a shorter path to Genzano. The scenery is delightful, but the heat was oppressive, for there was no wind, and the path is very much exposed to the sun. From Genzano, I descended to the lake of Nemi to look at the Emissario, which I had missed before, and which was hardly worth visiting, but some fine plane trees growing by the side of the water, and shading it by their spreading branches, very much embellished the scene.

The inn where I had before resided at Albano was full, but I found the other, which is the posthouse, equally good. A little while ago, some vases were said to be found under a bed of lava near Marino, but afterwards the story was so far changed, that instead of lava, the superincumbent bed was peperino. This peperino is certainly a volcanic production, and as there is no tradition among the nations of Italy connected with the Romans, that Monte Albano was an active volcano, an uncertain, but tremendous antiquity was assigned to these vases. On the other hand, although peperino be composed of volcanic substances, and sometimes, as on the borders of the lake of Albano, is certainly in the situation where it was left by the action of the fire, yet it is probable that in some cases the materials may have been acted upon by water, and consolidated in a new spot: even on this supposition we must consider them as the vestiges of a town prior to Alba Longa, which was itself destroyed by Tullus Hostilius in the first century of Rome. Bits of iron, resembling nails of different sizes, are said to have been found in the body of peperino, but there are many details of the circumstances of place, and condition, which have not been observed, and which cannot now be ascertained, the excavations in which the vases were found having been filled up; and this hasty destruction of evidence has thrown a suspicion on the story, for it may well be supposed that the urns were placed in some old hollow, or quarry, in this peperino. The number is considerable; they appear to be all sepulchral, and one great vase has contained several smaller ones. The largest of these included vases has the form of a hut, closed by a door which fastens by a little rod of brass, and they usually contain fragments of burnt bones, various ornaments, little models of shields, spears, &c., and one of a wheel; things apparently indicating the occupations of the deceased. They are all of rude workmanship; not all equally so, but we may doubt if the potter’s wheel was employed in the formation of any of them. Signor Visconti has published an account of them which has no merit, except towards the owner, a Signor Giuseppe Carnovale, who wants to sell the vases, and for whom this little work may serve as a puff. It is said that similar things have been found in Germany, and that these are therefore probably the productions of the middle ages. I left Albano on the 15th, at four o’clock in the morning, and arrived at Rome about half past seven. Nothing can be more delightful than the early hours of an Italian summer’s day, clear, bright, and fresh, without any oppressive sensation of heat.

Before I close this letter I must give you an account of another excursion, or rather of two excursions, each of a single day, down to Ostia. I do not undertake in these expeditions to describe everything that I see. Many of the objects are so similar that they would appear the same in description, though we always find difference enough to interest us in the reality. I might indeed have said something about the reservoir of Marius at Albano, and about the prætorian camp, attributed to Domitian, in the same neighbourhood, one of the stones of which is fifteen feet and a half long, and where Nibby is sure that there were four towers, for he saw traces of one of them; but I shall leave these, and a hundred other things which would scarcely interest you.

My first trip to Ostia was on the 15th of April, a fine frosty morning, when there was ice on the puddles and at the edges of the brooks, but elsewhere everything was dry and dusty. The corn on the hills began to look yellow for want of rain, but that in the valleys was strong and healthy, and the hawthorn was just coming into flower in spite of the frost, which has come this year so much after its usual time. The road follows the valley of the Tiber, which is bounded by low hills, descending pretty steeply towards the stream; sometimes close to the river, sometimes receding from it, and leaving a wide and fertile plain. In the first part of the way it is well cultivated, but thinly inhabited; farther on, cultivation diminishes, and ceases when we ascend an advancing and conspicuous point of these hills, and descend into the remains of the sacred wood. It is here mere brushwood, but at a distance to the left we may perceive plenty of large trees. The cutting down of this sacred wood is said to have occasioned the mal aria to extend much more about Rome; but this mal aria is a very mysterious affair, and many inconsistent stories are told about it. The letting in the sea breezes has ruined the country; yet the sea-shore is more healthy than the land immediately behind it. Within the walls of Rome some houses are said to be totally uninhabitable in the summer, while others, a hundred yards distant, because they are a little higher, a little farther from the Tiber, or from the country, or more surrounded by other houses, are pronounced entirely free. Out of Rome, and in the less inhabited parts within its walls, the hills are reckoned better than the valleys; but in modern Rome, the lower part of the city is more healthy than the upper. The Romans fancy that turning up the ground, in order to make a public garden on Monte Pincio, has made the street below it unhealthy. This mal aria occurs in the heats of summer, and in autumn, but this spring has been very unhealthy in Rome, and I believe, all over Italy. Among the numerous causes to which the mal aria is attributed, the alternation of hot days and cold nights, or rather perhaps, of hot sun and cold wind, is one; and we had a great deal of this during the months of March and April, but perhaps we shall find the root of the present disorder, rather in the scarcity of food, and the consequent bad nourishment of the people. The quantity of asphodel (Asphodelus ramosus) in this wood gives it a very un-English appearance. After passing the wood, the road lies for two or three miles across a marsh, comprising a large pool, or lake. These pieces of water in flat countries frequently have considerable beauty; but I do not think that a Norfolk Broad, though somewhat similar, would give you any adequate idea of this mere. It is of considerable size, and the dark shade of the woods of Castel Fusano, with trees of the stone pine rising over some gently swelling hills at the further end, formed a beautiful feature; while as we approached Ostia, the high hills of Albano united with this wood and water to compose a charming landscape.

The present town of Ostia is a miserable place, with a castle of the middle ages, which is certainly picturesque. The remains of the old city are at some distance; a large space of ground, all covered over with foundations and substructions. The principal building remaining is a rectangular brick edifice, probably a temple, in front of which was a portico; but the columns, and all the ornamental architecture, have been destroyed or taken away; some fragments still lying about, and others which have been removed to the Vatican, announce it to have been of a very beautiful Corinthian order; and both the style and execution correspond so precisely with the remains of the forum of Trajan at Rome, that I have no doubt in assigning it to the same period, and the same architect. A great deal of digging has been performed here at different times, but as usual, with the mere object of finding marbles or bronzes, without any regular system of operations, and without the precaution of making any exact plan of the foundations of buildings thus exposed and covered up again. On the other side of the principal branch of the Tiber are the remains of the port and basin of Trajan, now a shallow lake. It appears to have been a heptagonal basin of perhaps half a mile in diameter. The regularity of the form has been disturbed by time, but we may still trace the walls which surrounded it, and which indeed form a great part of its present boundary. Some of the marble posts to which the ships were moored, still remain; and there are fragments of what were probably warehouses, and buildings of that nature attached to this port. There is also a circular building which perhaps was a temple. The whole together was truly a magnificent undertaking, but whether it was a judicious one may perhaps be doubted. As a port, nature has declared against it, and it is destroyed, nor does there seem to have been any provision for keeping it clear.

From Ostia I walked down to the shore, among brushwood of a hundred flowering shrubs. The sand hills nearest the sea are chiefly covered with junipers. The sand itself is dark, and has a dirty look, arising from its colour; its material is chiefly volcanic. Herds of buffaloes graze in these woods, the ugliest of the ox tribe. They are said to be sometimes mischievous, and are therefore not very pleasant companions in a solitary walk; but though they frequently approached to stare at me, they always dispersed before I came very near them.

There are two or three other very interesting excursions which may be made in the neighbourhood of Rome. One of these is to Veii, where I have just been in company with my friends Scott and Pardini. The situation of this city has been, as you know, long a subject of dispute, but it is now determined with so much certainty, that one wonders how it could ever have been doubted. It is only very lately that the Roman antiquaries have suspected that a careful examination of the localities might help to determine questions of this sort. We leave the road to Florence just beyond the tenth mile-stone, and a practicable carriage-way conducts us to Isola Farnese, a small village with a baronial palace, and various excavations in the precipitous and almost insulated rock of tufo on which it stands. At the foot of this rock runs a little stream, and an extensive platform at the top of the opposite steep ascent is the site of the ancient Veii. The bank is steep all round, and the boundary of the city followed the sinuosities of the hill. Parts of the ancient walls remain. They are of squared masonry, about eight or nine feet thick, and the blocks not very large. There are a few fragments of Roman times scattered about; and in a rock above the Cremera, (another little brook which afterwards unites with that below Isola Farnese) there are remains of sepulchres, which perhaps belonged to the ancient city. Yet we find here the usual sepulchral niche, with the cinerary urn at bottom, and some remains of the stucco, and of the red paint which adorned it. One of them has a recess within the niche to receive a tablet with the inscription, and part of the iron nails by which this tablet was attached to the rock may still be distinguished. At a little distance are other rocks cut in a similar manner. All of them are on the steep irregular bank between the city and the stream. Ascending by the banks of this little brook, we come to the Ponte Sodo, where the rivulet has been turned from its natural bed, and passes through a subterranean channel under a spur of the hill of Veii. I suspect this to be a Roman, not an Etruscan work, but I cannot explain why it was done. Just where the water enters, this perforation divides another channel obliquely, the two parts of which are seen at an elevation of about ten feet above the bottom of the present opening. At the other end is a small niche for a tablet.

Another of our excursions was to Gabii. We passed round the north end of its little lake, and found a few fragments of what was probably the wall of the ancient city, but the Roman town stood at some distance near the southern end of the lake. Here, some years ago, excavations were made, which it is said exhibited the plan of the forum; but after the marbles, which were the object of search, had been obtained, the place was filled up again, and no memorial preserved of any particulars. In this part are the remains of what has been supposed to be the temple of Juno of the ancient Gabii, but it has no evidence of such high antiquity. It appears to have had columns round three sides, but no posticum. The walls are thin, composed of squared blocks of Gabian stone, which is of the nature of peperino, but harder, and of a coarser grain, and abounds with large fragments of a compact lava. Within the temple, at three or four feet from the end, appears to have been an inclosure of metal with three openings, two of which had gates, but the central one was entirely free. The pavement is partly of a plain white mosaic, partly of stucco, and in one place both, the stucco lying over the mosaic. The external columns had deep flutes with a fillet between, and I think with an Attic base. They were therefore not Doric, but I could not find the least portion of a capital to determine what was the order employed. They have been covered at one time with a thick stucco. The court had small chambers on each side, and a semicircular flight of steps opposite to the front of the temple: just without the inclosure are the remains of a small edifice of large squared blocks of masonry. The whole hill is cut up by extensive quarries.

I will add to these an account of an excursion to Nettuno, and the ancient Antium, made with two Italian friends. One of the party had to stop at Albano, which took us a little out of our way and occasioned us to miss Boville. The road from Albano runs along the edge of the ancient crater below Aricia, and the descent thence into the regular road was hardly passable. We procured bread, wine, and eggs, at Carrocelli; in a miserable hovel inhabited only half the year. Here we entered the Sylva Sacra, where numberless tracks are marked in the deep sandy soil, and make a guide necessary. We found few traces of antiquity on the shore at Nettuno, but there are numerous foundations in the sea, and particularly a large, and symmetrical building, which we contemplated at leisure from the window of our bed-room. The shore between this and Porto d’ Anzo is edged with a low cliff, chiefly composed of agglutinated shells. Fragments of Roman buildings abound both on the shore and in the water. The cliffs are much broken, and being fringed with shrubs, have a very picturesque appearance. The great mass of antiquities is beyond the present village of Porto d’ Anzo. Here we trace the piers of the ancient harbour of Antium, and the quantity of substructions is immense: all is imperial, and full of reticulated work. The more ancient city was perhaps on the hill behind, which seems to be artificially separated from the rest of the range. We lost our way in the sacred wood, which between Nettuno and Ardea abounds with noble trees of cork, ilex, oak and cerro. Sometimes filled up with underwood, at others almost clear, and now and then exhibiting open spaces of pasture. Before reaching Ardea, the volcanic points of the hills form perpendicular crests, which frequently appear to have been cut, and caves are numerous. The present Ardea occupies a small detached rock; and where nature has denied the perpendicular crest, it is supplied by walls. About two thirds of a mile from the present circuit are two long artificial mounds; and in the hollow between them, the remains of a gateway. About a mile further are two more aggeres. In both these places the hollow from which the earth has been taken to form the mounds, is on the side farthest from the city. Everywhere else the long, tongue-shaped hill furnishes a natural defence. Great part of our way back to Rome lay along the ancient Via Ardeatina.