“He is full of fire,” said Gigi, poking the donkey in the ribs to excite a show of animation.  “You should see him gallop uphill with my brother on his back, and a good load into the bargain.  Brrrr!  Stand still, will you!” he cried, holding tight by the halter, though the animal did not seem anxious to run away.

“And then,” said Gigi, “he eats nothing,—­positively nothing.”

“He does not look as though he had eaten much of late,” I said.

“Oh, my brother-in-law is as good to him as though he were a Christian.  He gives him corn bread and fish, just like his own children.  But this ass prefers straw.”

“A frugal ass,” I said, and we began to bargain.  I will not tell you what I gave Gigi’s brother-in-law for the beast, because you would laugh.  And I bought an old saddle, too.  It was really necessary, but it was a dear bargain, though it was cheaper than hiring; for I sold the donkey and the saddle again, and got back something.

It is a wild country enough that lies behind the mountains towards the sources of the Aniene,—­the river that makes the falls at Tivoli.  You could not half understand how in these times, under the new government, and almost within a long day’s ride from Rome, such things could take place as I am about to tell you of, unless I explained to you how very primitive that country is which lies to the south-east of the capital, and-which we generally call the Abruzzi.  The district is wholly mountainous, and though there are no very great elevations there are very ragged gorges and steep precipices, and now and then an inaccessible bit of forest far up among the rocks, which no man has ever thought of cutting down.  It would be quite impossible to remove the timber.  The people are mostly shepherds in the higher regions, where there are no vines, and when opportunity offers they will waylay the unwary traveller and rob him, and even murder him, without thinking very much about it.  In the old days the boundary between the Papal States and the kingdom of Naples ran through these mountains, and the contrabbandieri—­the smugglers of all sorts of wares—­used to cross from one dominion to the other by circuitous paths and steep ways of which only a few had knowledge.  The better known of these passes were defended by soldiers and police, but there have been bloody fights fought, within a few years, between the law and its breakers.  Foreigners never penetrate into the recesses of these hills, and even the English guide-books, which are said to contain an account of everything that the Buon Dio ever made, compiled from notes taken at the time of the creation, make no mention of places which surpass in beauty all the rest of Italy put together.