After some discussion with a vetturino, who was to leave next morning, we made a contract with him for the remainder of the journey, for the rain, which fell in torrents, forbade all thought of pedestrianism.  At five o’clock we rattled out of the gate, and drove by the waning moon and morning starlight, down the vale of the Clitumnus.  As the dawn stole on, I watched eagerly the features of the scene.  Instead of a narrow glen, as my fancy had pictured, we were in a valley, several miles broad, covered with rich orchards and fertile fields.  A glorious range of mountains bordered it on the north, looking like Alps in their winter garments.  A rosy flush stole over the snow, which kindled with the growing morn, till they shone like clouds that float in the sunrise.  The Clitumnus, beside us, was the purest of streams.  The heavy rains which had fallen, had not soiled in the least its limpid crystal.

When it grew light enough, I looked at our companions for the three days’ journey.  The two other inside seats were occupied by a tradesman of Trieste, with his wife and child; an old soldier, and a young dragoon going to visit his parents after seven years’ absence, occupied the front part.  Persons traveling together in a carriage are not long in becoming acquainted—­close companionship soon breeds familiarity.  Before night, I had made a fast friend of the young soldier, learned to bear the perverse humor of the child with as much patience as its father, and even drawn looks of grim kindness from the crusty old vetturino.

Our mid-day resting place was Spoleto.  As there were two hours given us, we took a ramble through the city, visited the ruins of its Roman theatre and saw the gate erected to commemorate the victory gained here over Hannibal, which stopped his triumphal march towards Rome.  A great part of the afternoon was spent in ascending among the defiles of Monte Somma, the highest pass on the road between Ancona and Rome.  Assisted by two yoke of oxen we slowly toiled up through the snow, the mountains on both sides covered with thickets of box and evergreen oaks, among whose leafy screens the banditti hide themselves.  It is not considered dangerous at present, but as the dragoons who used to patrol this pass have been sent off to Bologna, to keep down the rebellion, the robbers will probably return to their old haunts again.  We saw many suspicious looking coverts, where they might have hidden.

We slept at Terni and did not see the falls—­not exactly on Wordsworth’s principle of leaving Yarrow “unvisited,” but because under the circumstances, it was impossible.  The vetturino did not arrive there till after dark; he was to leave before dawn; the distance was five miles, and the roads very bad.  Besides, we had seen falls quite as grand, which needed only a Byron to make them as renowned—­we had been told that those of Tivoli, which we shall see, were equally fine.  The Velino, which we crossed near Terni, was not a large stream—­in short, we hunted as many reasons as we could find, why the falls need not be seen.