At the end of a day in Gubbio, it is pleasant to take our ease in the primitive hostelry, at the back of which foams a mountain-torrent, rushing downward from the Apennines.  The Gubbio wine is very fragrant, and of a rich ruby colour.  Those to whom the tints of wine and jewels give a pleasure not entirely childish, will take delight in its specific blending of tawny hues with rose.  They serve the table still, at Gubbio, after the antique Italian fashion, covering it with a cream-coloured linen cloth bordered with coarse lace—­the creases of the press, the scent of old herbs from the wardrobe, are still upon it—­and the board is set with shallow dishes of warm, white earthenware, basket-worked in open lattice at the edge, which contain little separate messes of meat, vegetables, cheese, and comfits.  The wine stands in strange, slender phials of smooth glass, with stoppers; and the amber-coloured bread lies in fair round loaves upon the cloth.  Dining thus is like sitting down to the supper at Emmaus, in some picture of Gian Bellini or of Masolino.  The very bareness of the room—­its open rafters, plastered walls, primitive settees, and red-brick floor, on which a dog sits waiting for a bone—­enhances the impression of artistic delicacy in the table.

FROM GUBBIO TO FANO

The road from Gubbio, immediately after leaving the city, enters a narrow Alpine ravine, where a thin stream dashes over dark, red rocks, and pendent saxifrages wave to the winds.  The carriage in which we travelled at the end of May, one morning, had two horses, which our driver soon supplemented with a couple of white oxen.  Slowly and toilsomely we ascended between the flanks of barren hills—­gaunt masses of crimson and grey crag, clothed at their summits with short turf and scanty pasture.  The pass leads first to the little town of Scheggia, and is called the Monte Calvo, or bald mountain.  At Scheggia, it joins the great Flaminian Way, or North road of the Roman armies.  At the top there is a fine view over the conical hills that dominate Gubbio, and, far away, to noble mountains above the Furlo and the Foligno line of railway to Ancona.  Range rises over range, crossing at unexpected angles, breaking into sudden precipices, and stretching out long, exquisitely modelled outlines, as only Apennines can do, in silvery sobriety of colours toned by clearest air.  Every square piece of this austere, wild landscape forms a varied picture, whereof the composition is due to subtle arrangements of lines always delicate; and these lines seem somehow to have been determined in their beauty by the vast antiquity of the mountain system, as though they all had taken time to choose their place and wear down into harmony.  The effect of tempered sadness was heightened for us by stormy lights and dun clouds, high in air, rolling vapours and flying shadows, over all the prospect, tinted in ethereal grisaille.