AN ENGLISH CAPTAIN. 179 carriage and horses had been offered to me but I durst not trust the concern, and added the owner proposed to take me for fifty scudi, but I would not have it on any terms. (This was literally true.) Fifty scudi! exclaimed he; I give eighty-five. Seeming to grow warm myself at the enormity of the deception, I replied, Eighty-five scudi! Why, my dear sir, you are robbed-shamefully robbed, and then if you should never get to Florence with that team. "I know it,” said he, "I will go back to Rome immediately." But, I replied, there is one difficulty in the way: as you have made a bargain, the authorities will doubtless compel you to fulfil it, especially as the fellow promises to take you on without delay. I am sorry-but-really, my dear sir, I am afraid there is no help. The Captain now stood at boiling heat, and the poor Vetturino fairly shook with terror. "Come," said the Captain, 66 come tell my wife and daughter how they offered you this same ricketty concern, when they knew it would break down. Come, come on," said he. I did not exactly like the prospect before me, but made the best of it and followed on. Judge of my astonishment on entering the room to see a fair young sweet English face, that had often arrested my attention in the streets of Rome, the owner of which I never dreamed of being the daughter of my sputtering Captain. She was an authoress of some fame, and a novelist to boot. The first thought that struck me was-" how extremely odd, and what a misfortune if she should turn back. What a bit of sunlight she would be on the road during the six days' journey before us. To see her at the lonely hotels we shall stop at, and amid the glorious scenery we shall gaze on, would be no slight addition to the pleasure of the journey." The Captain immediately started off on his furious. gallop, repeating what I had said before. At the first pause the little beauty remarked, "Yes, we must return I think as soon as we have breakfasted." This was tipping over my castle in the air in a moment, and how to counteract what I had told the Captain seemed not so plain. I could have bitten off my tongue with vexation. However, I determined to put a bold face on it, and replied, "By no means; I think you have a remarkably excellent carriage-it is light and easy, while ours is a huge lumbering affair." "Oh the carriage is well enough," said she, "but the horses are such dreadfully poor creatures, I am sure they will die before they get to Florence." "Not at all, not at all-I can assure you; these lean Cassius looking horses are the best to get over the ground-your fat Italian animals are perfect oxen on the road; beside there is nothing better in Rome now—all are ‘en route.' Moreover we will make the Vetturino change the horse that gave out, and continue to do so as often as one fails." The Captain seemed utterly unable to comprehend the sudden change in my views, and stood and stared at me in a perfect puzzle. He could not understand the difference between the prospect of having a Captain Brimstone for a companion on the way, and a young beautiful English woman. Just then a happy thought came to my aid. It occurred to me that the Captain had raved so on the way that the poor apologies for horses had been urged to their utmost powers by the frightened Vetturino, and I inquired how long they had been in driving from Rome. It was as I supposed; they had come like distraction. Why, said I, you have come it in an hour and a half less time than we. Why you will trot right away from us. This idea tickled the Captain amazingly; he rubbed his hands, chuckled, and turning to his daughter said, "Don't you see, my dear, we have beat them an hour and a half. I think we can venture to go on." We made the Vettu. rino change one of his horses and all was soon settled. You may smile at this episode, but it is one of those things that make up a traveller's existence, and interest him perhaps deeper than more important matters. The first night I had a quarrel with our Vetturino from principle. Paying for our lodgings himself, I knew that he, like all his fraternity, would cheat us if he could. A terrible fuss the first night, as if you expected vastly more than any body could give, and was one of the most querulous of the fretful species, is indispensable to secure decent treatment on the way. I will not weary you with our slow desolate ride through Etruria. Take one hut as a specimen of many. It stood by the road-side, in the open ground that stretched away as far as the eye could reach, without enclosures, and without cultivationbuilt of a sort of weed that grows wild in that section, and which has the appearance of small brushwood. I entered it, and there on the bare ground, sat a mother with several children. A pot BRIDGE OF AUGUSTUS. 181 was boiling in the centre, with some vegetables in it. The fire frightened me in the midst of so much combustible matter. I spoke to the mother, and inquired about her circumstances, and added, "Are you not afraid of that fire? What would you do if this tinder-box here in which you live should catch fire?" She clasped her hands, turned her black eyes toward heaven, and laughing outright, exclaimed, “God help us then." I do not believe an Italian woman ever prayed without a laugh in one corner of her heart. I thought I would describe, but cannot, the approach to picturesque Civita Castellana-the wonderful ravine that passes it, with the huts of washer-women dwindled down to a point at the bottom-the beautiful valley of the Tiber which we dropped into beyond, where Macdonald, in the retreat of the French army from Italy, cut his way through the Neapolitan ranks, though they out-numbered him three to one-a valley then filled with the smoke of battle, but now the sweetest, loveliest spot, that ever smiled in the sunshine. Here the artists from Rome flock in the summer, and dream away its oppressive heat in this Elysian field. I wished also to take you along the vale of the Nar, with its milk-white flood, and hermitages perched on the rocks, like eagles' nests—and bid you listen to the chattering of one of the most ignorant monks I ever conversed with; but I must hasten on. At Narni was a celebration in honor of St. John, and such a collection of queer costumes you never beheld. The streets were strewn with evergreens; and processions were formed, headed with a wooden cross, some fifteen feet high, while in the Churches were drums, and trumpets, and armed men. But this, too, I must pass by, and a queer adventure that befel me here, and ask you only to accompany me while the carriage is left to meet us some three miles ahead, to the Gulf where stands the ruinous arches of the 'Bridge of Augustus.' This Bridge, built by the Emperor, connects two hills, and has three arches more than sixty feet high, built of blocks of marble, without cement or cramps of any description to fasten them. The middle arch is broken, and beneath it rushes the torrent as it rushed when strode the Emperor of the world over. It is a noble ruin, and through the arch a distant hermitage among the rocks looked picturesque enough. Truly yours. LETTER XXXVII. Falls of Terni. TERNI, May, 1843. DEAR E.-We reached here about 3 o'clock this afternoon, and immediately hired another carriage and started for the "Falls of Terni." You can visit them in two ways—by beginning at the bottom, and walking to the top, or riding up a mountain by a recently made road, a mile or two, and descending to the bottom. Our guide and driver thought of course it would be far better to begin at the bottom, for more than "eighteen reasons," but especially as it would save driving us some two or three miles up a steep, narrow, and winding way. But let me advise the traveller in the first place always to ride to the top, and send his carriage back. In the second place, to fill his pocket with coppers, and as soon as he sees a beggar approach, or a man picking up stones out of the path, or even standing still, to hurl one at him. A dollar or two spent in this way is a clear gain, to one who wishes to enjoy the scenery; otherwise he will have every fine emotion dissipated, and his very soul tormented into madness, by the incessant cry of "Signore, un baiocca-per carita―mi miserabile," et cetera. My small stock was soon exhausted, and the moment I stopped amid the roar of the cataract, to listen to its great anthem, or look on its torn waters, I was besieged by some half dozen ragamuffins, till I had no resource but run for it. They always take it for granted you lie when you tell them you have no more small change. I will not attemp* to describe these Falls. I will say only that the upper Fall is about 50 feet high, the second between 600 and 700, and the long sheet of foam which forms the third 270 feet, making in all about 1,000 feet-and then refer you to Byron's description, beginning FALLS OF TERNI. "The roar of waters!-from the headlong height The flashing mass foams, shaking the abyss; Of their great agony, wrung out from this 183 I will merely add by way of comment that this description is stretched a little. I will say, however, in justice to Byron, that I have ever found Childe Harold's descriptions faithful almost to the letter, except in this single instance, and here I excuse him on the ground that he had never seen any large cataracts, and hence was naturally impressed beyond measure with the sublimity of this really fine water-fall. But the "infant sea” he speaks of I could throw my hat across, and "the eternity" he thinks he sees "rushing on" is the smallest probably most men will ever experience. Yet the cataract is worth a visit. The rapid shoot of the waters at the summit—the long reckless leap of the torrent that is dashed into the minutest particles of foam at the bottom, which go rising up like smoke over the face of the rock-the dizzy height—the roar and the solitude, impress the mind with awe and wonder; and then the hidden and mysterious paths that lead to the bottom-now burying you in the side of the hill, and now carrying you to the very brink of some precipice, whose forehead is bathed in the falling spray, keep you in a state of constant excitement. The finest view, however, is from a rock on the opposite mountain. From this point you look directly on the face of the cataract, and take in the whole at a glance. In gazing on this waterfall I was struck with the power of a poetic imagination to impersonate every thing. Byron says, "While the sweat Of their great agony, wrung out from this Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet," &c. And sure enough, there it is—the "sweat of their great agony.” The spray, condensing on the black sides of the rocks, trickles |