bridge of Augustus at Narni, a magnificent viaduct sixty feet high,
thrown from ridge to ridge across the ravine for the passage of the
Flaminian Way--a wreck now, for two of the arches have fallen, but
through the last there is a glimpse of the rugged hillsides with their
thick forests and the turbulent waters rushing through the chasm. Higher
still is Narni, looking over her embattled walls. It is one of the most
striking positions on the way from Florence to Rome, and the next half
hour, through savage gorges and black tunnels, ever beside the tormented
waters of the Nar until they meet the Tiber, swollen by the tributes of
the Paglia and Chiana, is singularly fine.

[Illustration: ORVIETO.]

Where the Paglia and Chiana flow together, at the issue of the charming
Val di Chiana, stands Orvieto on its steep and sudden rock, crowned with
one of the triumphs of Italian Gothic, the glorious cathedral. After
toiling up the ladder-like paths which lead from the plain to the summit
of the bluff, and passing through the grand mediæval gateway along the
slanting streets, where even the peasants dismount and walk beside their
donkeys, seeing nothing within the whole small compass of the walls save
what speaks of the narrowest and humblest life in the most remote of
hill-fastnesses, a few deserted and dilapidated palaces alone telling of
a period of importance long past, nothing can describe the effect of
coming out of this indigence and insignificance upon the silent,
solitary piazza where the incomparable cathedral rears its front,
covered from base to pinnacle with the richest sculpture and most
brilliant mosaic. The volcanic mass on which the town is built is over
seven hundred feet high, and nearly half as much in circumference: it
would be a fitting pedestal for this gorgeous duomo if it stood there
alone. But it is almost wedged in among the crooked streets, a few paces