These not only move slowly, but are subject to be interrupted by the
Romany and by the banditti, or persons who, for moral or political
crimes, have been banished from their homes.

It is in the cities that cluster around the great central lake that all
the life and civilization of our day are found; but there also begin
those wars and social convulsions which cause so much suffering. When
was the Peninsula at peace? and when was there not some mischief and
change brewing in the republics? When was there not a danger from the
northern mainland?

Until recent years there was little knowledge of, and scarcely any
direct commerce or intercourse between, the central part and the
districts either of the extreme west or the north, and it is only now
that the north and east are becoming open to us; for at the back of the
narrow circle or cultivated land, the belt about the Lake, there extend
immense forests in every direction, through which, till very lately, no
practicable way had been cut. Even in the more civilized central part it
is not to this day easy to travel, for at the barriers, as you approach
the territories of every prince, they demand your business and your
papers; nor even if you establish the fact that you are innocent of
designs against the State, shall you hardly enter without satisfying the
greed of the officials.

A fine is thus exacted at the gate of every province and kingdom, and
again at the gateways of the towns. The difference of the coinage, such
as it is, causes also great loss and trouble, for the money of one
kingdom (though passing current by command in that territory) is not
received at its nominal value in the next on account of the alloy it
contains. It is, indeed, in many kingdoms impossible to obtain sterling