to a wave just on the bend, and about to break over towards the
spectator. As we approached it nearer and nearer, it looked like the
barrenest great rock that ever protruded out of the substance of the
earth, with scarcely a strip or a spot of verdure upon its steep and gray
declivities. The road kept trending towards the mountain, following the
line of the old Flaminian Way, which we could see, at frequent intervals,
close beside the modern track. It is paved with large flag-stones, laid
so accurately together, that it is still, in some places, as smooth and
even as the floor of a church; and everywhere the tufts of grass find it
difficult to root themselves into the interstices. Its course is
straighter than that of the road of to-day, which often turns aside to
avoid obstacles which the ancient one surmounted. Much of it, probably,
is covered with the soil and overgrowth deposited in later years; and,
now and then, we could see its flag-stones partly protruding from the
bank through which our road has been cut, and thus showing that the
thickness of this massive pavement was more than a foot of solid stone.
We lost it over and over again; but still it reappeared, now on one side
of us, now on the other; perhaps from beneath the roots of old trees, or
the pasture-land of a thousand years old, and leading on towards the base
of Soracte. I forget where we finally lost it. Passing through a town
called Rignano, we found it dressed out in festivity, with festoons of
foliage along both sides of the street, which ran beneath a triumphal
arch, bearing an inscription in honor of a ducal personage of the Massimi
family. I know no occasion for the feast, except that it is Whitsuntide.
The town was thronged with peasants, in their best attire, and we met
others on their way thither, particularly women and girls, with heads
bare in the sunshine; but there was no tiptoe jollity, nor, indeed,
any more show of festivity than I have seen in my own country at a
cattle-show or muster. Really, I think, not half so much.