and by that token of a great bard, I recognized Monte Soracte.  The dragoon took us by the arms, and away we scampered over the Campagna, with one of the loveliest sunsets before us, that ever painted itself on my retina.  I cannot portray in words the glory that flooded the whole western heaven.  It was like a sea of melted ruby, amethyst and topaz—­deep, dazzling and of crystal transparency.  The color changed in tone every few minutes, till in half an hour it sank away before the twilight to a belt of deep orange along the west.

We left Civita Castellana before daylight.  The sky was red with dawn as we approached Nepi, and we got out to walk, in the clear, frosty air.  A magnificent Roman aqueduct, part of it a double row of arches, still supplies the town with water.  There is a deep ravine, appearing as if rent in the ground by some convulsion, on the eastern side of the city.  A clear stream that steals through the arches of the aqueduct, falls in a cascade of sixty feet down into the chasm, sending up constant wreaths of spray through the evergreen foliage that clothes the rocks.  In walking over the desolate Campagna, we saw many deep chambers dug in the earth, used by the charcoal burners; the air was filled with sulphureous exhalations, very offensive to the smell, which rose from the ground in many places.

Miles and miles of the dreary waste, covered only with flocks of grazing sheep, were passed,—­and about noon we reached Baccano, a small post station, twenty miles from Rome.  A long hill rose before us, and we sprang out of the carriage and ran ahead, to see Rome from its summit.  As we approached the top, the Campagna spread far before and around us, level and blue as an ocean.  I climbed up a high bank by the roadside, and the whole scene came in view.  Perhaps eighteen miles distant rose the dome of St. Peter’s, near the horizon—­a small spot on the vast plain.  Beyond it and further east, were the mountains of Albano—­on our left Soracte and the Appenines, and a blue line along the west betrayed the Mediterranean.  There was nothing peculiarly beautiful or sublime in the landscape, but few other scenes on earth combine in one glance such a myriad of mighty associations, or bewilder the mind with such a crowd of confused emotions.

As we approached Rome, the dragoon, with whom we had been walking all day, became anxious and impatient.  He had not heard from his parents for a long time, and knew not if they were living.  His desire to be at the end of his journey finally became so great, that he hailed a peasant who was driving by in a light vehicle, left our slow carriage and went out of sight in a gallop.