LETTER IV.

WE got up, however, at four o'clock the next morning, unmurdered,-our friend of the musket and the sword, I make no doubt, being still fast in the arms of Morpheus; and we began in the dark to wend our weary way from this miserable osteria. First, we had a horse added to the three mules, and then a pair of oxen were yoked in front of all, and slowly toiling along, this combination of animals at last contrived to pull us up the long dreary barren hills, whose broken surface, strewed all over with huge masses of rock, were the only objects that met our view.

At ten o'clock we stopped at a solitary house on these wild wastes, called La Scala. It was the filthiest place I ever beheld, and the smell was so intolerable, that nothing but the excessive cold out of doors, could have induced us to have remained a single moment within it. Two hours, however, did we stay, cowering over the smoke of a wet wood fire, waiting till the mules were fed, for they

could get something to eat, but for us there was nothing; neither bread, coffee, eggs, milk, meat, fruit, vegetables, nor even macaroni, were to be had; so that we might have starved, or breakfasted upon salt fish fried in oil, had not our man, more provident than ourselves, produced a store of stale loaves and hard boiled eggs that he had laid in at Siena. We had observed a palace near the village of San Quirico, which we passed through this morning, and I learnt from the dirty squalid mistress of La Scala, between the acts of puffing the fire with her breath, that it belongs to the noble family of Chigi, but that they never live there now, and that San Quirico is inhabited only by poor people, "except indeed the canons of the church, who," she said, "were ricchissimi." On enquiring into the amount of this excess of wealth, it proved to be 300 crowns a-year! "Blush, Grandeur! blush !”

From La Scala we toiled up apparently interminable hills, till at last,―contrary to my expectations, we reached the top of the wild and savage mountain of Radicofani. It was heaped with the tremendous ruins of nature. All around, huge blue fragments of basaltic rock were strewed so thickly, as in most places wholly to conceal the surface of the earth. When exposed to view between these heaps of shattered rock, it was quite bare, and looked as if from creation it had never borne one blade of grass. Dark barren hills of stone, rising all around us, met our eye in every

direction; it is impossible to conceive a more desolate scene. It seemed as if the beings that inhabited it must, of necessity, partake of its savage nature; and the aspect of those we saw well accorded with its character.

The country-men were all clothed in shaggy sheep-skins, with the wool outside, rudely stitched together to serve as a covering to their bodies; and pieces of the same were tied about their thighs, partially concealing the ragged vestments they wore beneath. Their legs and feet were bare; and this savage attire gave a strange, wild effect to the dark eyes that glared at us from beneath their bushy and matted locks. Indeed, their whole appearance reminded us literally of wolves in sheep's clothing.

The wintry blast howled around us in stormy gusts; but we braved its fury, though not without difficulty, in order to ascend to the town, or rather village, of Radicofoni, which is considerably higher up the mountain than the road, and wholly inaccessible to a carriage. High above the town, and impending directly over it, rises an abrupt rock of most singular appearance, which has its base on the very summit of the mountain, and on the utmost pinnacle of which stands the Castle, or Fort, of Radicofoni.

To this perilous-looking elevation, the violence of the wind rendered it wholly impossible for us to attain, and it was with great difficulty we clambered up to the wretched little town of Radicofoni;

which, after all, did not contain what we went to seek,-viz. casts from ancient medals and gems, which are made at the Baths of St Philip, a distance of five miles from hence, and therefore I concluded would be on sale here. No such thing! The Italians seem to neglect the most obvious means of making money honestly, but spare no trouble to get at it by begging or cheating. We were assailed with a crowd of stout, sturdy, clamorous beggars, any one of whom, if they had provided themselves with these casts to sell, might have made a considerable sum by us, and probably by most travellers. In England, there would have been abundance on sale, not only in the town, but at the inn.

The distance of the Baths of St Philip, the impracticability of the road for carriages, the shortness of the days, and the severity of the weather, prevented us from visiting this curious manufactory. I understood that the water of these springs, which holds a fine calcareous deposit, is artificially made to break into very fine spray, which falls on the models, and in time forms a perfect cast. The specimens I have seen are singularly beautiful.

In returning to the inn, we observed amongst the immense masses of rock which were heaped around on the mountain's side, some very striking basaltic columns; perhaps I ought rather to say, roots of columns, for I have never seen any elsewhere, and am ignorant if they present the same short, amputated appearance. None of them, I think, were so high as four feet, and they seldom

exceeded two. They reminded me much of stems of trees growing close together, and cut down. I did not measure their diameter, but it could scarcely be more than six inches.

Farther down, the young contadino, or peasant boy, who was our guide, (and whose sheep-skin clothing formed a curious contrast to his bare tawny legs and feet, of a deep red-brown, or copper colour) shewed us a large rock of blue compact basalt, which, when struck with a bit of stone, unites the sound of metal so exactly, that had not my eyes corrected the impression made on my ears, I should have believed it to have been a large bell struck by a hammer. Though immense numbers of masses of rock, similar in appearance, were strewed around, none of them possessed this property. The peasants all say this mountain was once a Vesuvio, which is, very naturally, throughout Italy, the generic name for a volcano, amongst the country people; and it is impossible to look on this scene of tremendous desolation, without sympathising in their belief, that it is the work of subterranean fire.

The Dogana of the Archduke, by the road-side, reminded us that we here quitted the frontiers of Tuscany, and entered the Estates of the Church; and a mile or two farther, at Ponte Centino, we stopped to give the officers of his Holiness the customary bribe of five pauls not to open our trunks. Indeed, throughout Italy, the Dogana, or Customhouse, operates as a direct tax upon travellers. I