Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 3.djvu/462

454 Roba di Roma. [April, ENTRANCE. ROBA DI ROMA. IT was on the 6th of December, 1856, that I landed with my family at Civita Vecchia, on my return for the third time to Rome. Before we could make all our arrangements, it was too late to think of journeying that day towards the dear old city; but the following morning we set forth in a rumbling, yellow post-coach, with three horses, and a shabby, gaudy postilion, the wheels clattering, the bells on the horses' necks jingling, the cock's- plumes on their heads nodding, and a half-dozen sturdy beggar-brats running at our side and singing a dismal chorus of "Dateci qualche cosa." Two or three half-baiocchi, however, bought them off, and we had the road to ourselves. The day was charming, the sky cloudless, the air tender and with that delicious odor of the South which so soothingly intoxi- cates the senses. The sea, accompanying us for half our way, gleamed and shook out its breaking surf along the shore; and the rolling slopes of the Campagna, flat- tered by sunlight, stretched all around us,―here desert and sparkling with tall skeleton grasses and the dry canes' tuft- ed feathers, and here covered with low, shrubby trees, that, crowding darkly to- gether, climbed the higher hills. On tongues of land, jutting out into the sea, stood at intervals lonely watch-towers, gray with age, and at their feet shallow and impotent waves gnashed into foam around the black, jagged teeth of half- sunken rocks along the shore. Here and there the broken arches of a Roman bridge, nearly buried in the lush growth of weeds, shrubs, and flowers, or the ruins of some old villa, the home of the owl, snake, and lizard, showed where Ancient Rome journeyed and lived. At intervals, heavy carts, drawn by the su- perb gray oxen of the Campagna, creak- ed slowly by, the contadino sitting athwart the tongue; or some light wine carrettino came ringing along, the driver fast asleep under its tall, triangular cover, with his fierce little dog beside him, and his horse adorned with bright rosettes and feathers. Sometimes long lines of mules or horses, tied one to another's tail, plodded on in dusty procession, laden with sacks; - sometimes droves of oxen, or poledri, conducted by a sturdy driver in heavy leathern leggings, and armed with a long, pointed pole, stopped our way for a mo- ment. In the fields, the pecoraro, in shag- gy sheep-skin breeches, the very type of the mythic Pan, leaned against his staff, half-asleep, and tended his woolly flock,- or the contadino drove through dark fur- rows the old plough of Virgil's time, that figures in the vignettes to the "Geor- gics," dragged tediously along by four white oxen, yoked abreast. There, too, were herds of long-haired goats, rearing mid the bushes and showing their beards over them, or following the shepherd to their fold, as the shadows began to length- en, or rude and screaming wains, tug- ged by uncouth buffaloes, with low heads and knotted knees, bred among the ma- laria-stricken marshes. Half-way to Rome we changed horses at Palo, a little grim settlement, com- posed of a post-house, inn, stables, a line of straggling fishermen's-huts, and a des- olate old fortress, flanked by four towers. This fortress, which once belonged to the Odescalchi family, but is now the prop- erty of the Roman government, looks like the very spot for a tragedy, as it stands there rotting in the pestilential air, and garrisoned by a few stray old soldiers, whose dreary, broken-down ap- pearance is quite in keeping with the place. Palo itself is the site of the city of Alsium, founded by the Pelasgi, in the dim gloom of antiquity, long before the Etruscans landed on this shore. It was subsequently occupied by the Etruscans, and afterwards became a favorite resort of the Roman nobility, who built there