Not far from here one leaves the train for Perugia, seated high on
a bluff amid walls and towers. We had been told a good deal of the
terrors of the way--how so steep was the approach that at a certain
point horses give out and carriages must be dragged up by oxen. It was
with some surprise, therefore, that we saw ordinary hotel omnibuses
and carriages waiting at the station. But we did not allow ourselves
to feel any false security: by and by we knew the tug must come. We
set off by a wide, winding road, uphill undoubtedly, but smooth and
easy: however, this was only the beginning; and as it grew steeper and
steeper, we waited in trepidation for the moment when the heavy beasts
should be hitched on to haul us up the acclivity. We crawled up safely
and slowly between orchards of olive trees, which will grow wherever
a goat can set its foot: beneath us the great fertile vale of Umbria
spread like a lake, the encircling mountains, which had looked like
a close chain from below, unlinking themselves to reveal gorges and
glimpses of other valleys. Thus by successive zigzags we mounted
the broad turnpike-road, now directly under the fortifications, now
farther off, until we saw them close above us, with the old citadel
and the new palace. And now surely the worst had come, but the carnage
turned a sharp corner, showing two more zigzags, forming a long acute
angle which carried us smoothly to the rocky plateau on which the city
stands, and we bowled in through the old gate-way at a round trot,
with the usual cracking of whips and rattling and jingling of harness
which announces the arrival of travelers at minor places on the
Continent.

We were not comfortable at Perugia--and let no one think to be so
until there is a new hotel on a new principle--but it is a place where
one can afford to forego creature comforts. Of all the towns on the