The road in the earlier part of the way was not particularly
picturesque,--the country undulated, but scarcely rose into hills, and
was destitute of trees; there were a few shapeless ruins, too indistinct
for us to make out whether they were Roman or mediaeval. Nothing struck
one so much, in the forenoon, as the spectacle of a peasant-woman riding
on horseback as if she were a man. The houses were few, and those of a
dreary aspect, built of gray stone, and looking bare and desolate, with
not the slightest promise of comfort within doors. We passed two or
three locandas or inns, and finally came to the village (if village it
were, for I remember no houses except our osteria) of Castel Nuovo di
Porta, where we were to take a dejeuner a la fourchette, which was put
upon the table between twelve and one. On this journey, according to the
custom of travellers in Italy, we pay the vetturino a certain sum, and
live at his expense; and this meal was the first specimen of his catering
on our behalf. It consisted of a beefsteak, rather dry and hard, but not
unpalatable, and a large omelette; and for beverage, two quart bottles of
red wine, which, being tasted, had an agreeable acid flavor. . . . . The
locanda was built of stone, and had what looked like an old Roman altar
in the basement-hall, and a shrine, with a lamp before it, on the
staircase; and the large public saloon in which we ate had a brick floor,
a ceiling with cross-beams, meagrely painted in fresco, and a scanty
supply of chairs and settees.

After lunch, we wandered out into a valley or ravine near the house,
where we gathered some flowers, and J----- found a nest with the young
birds in it, which, however, he put back into the bush whence he took it.

Our afternoon drive was more picturesque and noteworthy. Soracte rose
before us, bulging up quite abruptly out of the plain, and keeping itself
entirely distinct from a whole horizon of hills. Byron well compares it