November 7th.
I travelled by the mail-carriage. By seven in the morning we were at Caserta, and an hour later at Capua, a pretty bustling town on the banks of a river. Our road was most picturesque; we drove among vineyards and gardens through the midst of a lovely plain. On the right were mountains, increasing in number as we proceeded, and imparting a rich variety to the landscape. At noon we halted before a lovely inn. From this point the country increases in beauty at every step. The heights are strikingly fertile, and in the valley an excellent road winds amid pleasant gardens. The mountains frequently seem to approach as though about to form an impenetrable pass; while ruins crown the summits of the rocks, and give a romantic appearance to the whole. At about three o’clock we reached the little town of Jeromania, lying in the midst of vegetable-gardens. Above this town the handsome convent of Monte Cassino stands on a rock, and in its neighbourhood we notice the ruins of an amphitheatre.
To-day the weather was not in the least Italian, being, on the contrary, gloomy and rough, as we generally find it in Austria at the same season of the year. Yesterday it was so cold at Naples that Mount Vesuvius was covered with snow during several hours.
The dress of the peasants in these regions is of a more national character than I had yet found it. The women wear short and scanty petticoats of blue or red cloth, tight-fitting bodices, and gaily-striped aprons. Their head-dress consists of a white handkerchief, with a second above it folded in a square form. The men look like robbers; with their long dark-blue or brown cloaks, in which they wrap themselves so closely that it is difficult to get a glimpse of their faces, and their steeple-crowned black hats, they quite resemble the pictures of the bandits in the Abruzzi. They glide about in so spectral a manner, and eye travellers with such a sinister look, that I almost became uncomfortable.
From Jeromania we had still a few miles to travel until we entered the Roman territory near Ceprano.
In Naples, and in fact throughout the whole of Italy, the passports are continually called for,—a great annoyance to the traveller. In the course of to-day my passport was “visé” five times, making once in every little town through which we had passed.
It was our fortune at Ceprano to lodge with a very cheating host. In the evening, when I inquired the price of a bedroom and breakfast, they told me a bed would cost two pauls, and breakfast half a paul; but when I came to pay, the host asked three pauls for my bed-room, and another for a cup of the worst coffee I have ever drunk; and the whole company was subjected to the same extortion. We expostulated and complained, but were at length compelled to comply with the demand.