At Strettura (which, as the name indicates, is a very narrow part of the
valley) we added two oxen to our horses, and began to ascend the Monte
Somma, which, according to Murray, is nearly four thousand feet high
where we crossed it. When we came to the steepest part of the ascent,
Gaetano, who exercises a pretty decided control over his passengers,
allowed us to walk; and we all, with one exception, alighted, and began
to climb the mountain on foot. I walked on briskly, and soon left the
rest of the party behind, reaching the top of the pass in such a short
time that I could not believe it, and kept onward, expecting still
another height to climb. But the road began to descend, winding among
the depths of the hills as heretofore; now beside the dry, gravelly bed
of a departed stream, now crossing it by a bridge, and perhaps passing
through some other gorge, that yet gave no decided promise of an outlet
into the world beyond. A glimpse might occasionally be caught, through a
gap between the hill-tops, of a company of distant mountain-peaks,
pyramidal, as these hills are apt to be, and resembling the camp of an
army of giants. The landscape was not altogether savage; sometimes a
hillside was covered with a rich field of grain, or an orchard of
olive-trees, looking not unlike puffs of smoke, from the peculiar line of
their foliage; but oftener there was a vast mantle of trees and shrubbery
from top to bottom, the golden tufts of the broom shining out amid the
verdure, and gladdening the whole. Nothing was dismal except the houses;
those were always so, whether the compact, gray lines of village hovels,
with a narrow street between, or the lonely farm-house, standing far
apart from the road, built of stone, with window-gaps high in the wall,
empty of glass; or the half-castle, half-dwelling, of which I saw a
specimen or two, with what looked like a defensive rampart, drawn around
its court. I saw no look of comfort anywhere; and continually, in this
wild and solitary region, I met beggars, just as if I were still in the