Views A-foot; Or, Europe Seen with Knapsack and Staff

by Bayard Taylor

CHAPTER XLI. — TIVOLI AND THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA.

Jan. 9.—A few days ago we returned from an excursion to Tivoli, one of the loveliest spots in Italy. We left the Eternal City by the Gate of San Lorenzo, and twenty minutes walk brought us to the bare and bleak Campagna, which was spread around us for leagues in every direction. Here and there a shepherd-boy in his woolly coat, with his flock of browsing sheep, were the only objects that broke its desert-like monotony.

At the fourth mile we crossed the rapid Anio, the ancient Teverone, formerly the boundary between Latium and the Sabine dominions, and at the tenth, came upon some fragments of the old Tibertine way, formed of large irregular blocks of basaltic lava. A short distance further, we saw across the plain the ruins of the bath of Agrippa, built by the side of the Tartarean Lake. The wind, blowing from it, bore us an overpowering smell of sulphur; the waters of the little river Solfatara, which crosses the road, are of a milky blue color, and carry those of the lake into the Anio. A fragment of the old bridge over it still remains.

Finding the water quite warm, we determined to have a bath. So we ran down the plain, which was covered with a thick coat of sulphur, and sounded hollow to our tread, till we reached a convenient place, where we threw off our clothes, and plunged in. The warm wave was delightful to the skin, but extremely offensive to the smell, and when we came out, our mouths and throats were filled with the stifling gas.

It was growing dark as we mounted through the narrow streets of Tivoli, but we endeavored to gain some sight of the renowned beauties of the spot, before going to rest. From a platform on a brow of the hill, we looked down into the defile, at whose bottom the Anio was roaring, and caught a sideward glance of the Cascatelles, sending up their spray amid the evergreen bushes that fringe the rocks. Above the deep glen that curves into the mountain, stands the beautiful temple of the Sybil—a building of the most perfect and graceful proportion. It crests the "rocky brow" like a fairy dwelling, and looks all the lovelier for the wild caverns below. Gazing downward from the bridge, one sees the waters of the Anio tumbling into the picturesque grotto of the Sirens; around a rugged corner, a cloud of white spray whirls up continually, while the boom of a cataract rumbles down the glen. All these we marked in the deepening dusk, and then hunted an albergo.

The shrill-voiced hostess gave us a good supper and clean beds; in return we diverted the people very much by the relation of our sulphur bath. We were awakened in the night by the wind shaking the very soul out of our loose casement. I fancied I heard torrents of rain dashing against the panes, and groaned in bitterness of spirit on thinking of a walk back to Rome in such weather. When morning came, we found it was only a hurricane of wind which was strong enough to tear off pieces of the old roofs. I saw some capuchins nearly overturned in crossing the square, by the wind seizing their white robes.

I had my fingers frozen and my eyes filled with sand, in trying to draw the Sybil's temple, and therefore left it to join my companions, who had gone down into the glen to see the great cascade. The Anio bursts out of a cavern in the mountain-side, and like a prisoner giddy with recovered liberty, reels over the edge of a precipice more than two hundred feet deep. The bottom is hid in a cloud of boiling spray, that shifts from side to side, and driven by the wind, sweeps whistling down the narrow pass. It stuns the ear with a perpetual boom, giving a dash of grandeur to the enrapturing beauty of the scene. I tried a footpath that appeared to lead down to the Cascatelles, but after advancing some distance along the side of an almost perpendicular precipice, I came to a corner that looked so dangerous, especially as the wind was nearly strong enough to carry me off, that it seemed safest to return. We made another vain attempt to get down, by creeping along the bed of a torrent, filled with briars. The Cascatelles are formed by that part of the Anio, which is used in the iron works, made out of the ruins of Mecænas' villa. They gush out from under the ancient arches, and tumble more than a hundred feet down the precipice, their white waters gleaming out from the dark and feathery foliage. Not far distant are the remains of the villa of Horace.

We took the road to Frascati, and walked for miles among cane-swamps and over plains covered with sheep. The people we saw, were most degraded and ferocious-looking, and there were many I would not willingly meet alone after nightfall. Indeed it is still considered quite unsafe to venture without the walls of Rome, after dark. The women, with their yellow complexions, and the bright red blankets they wear folded around the head and shoulders, resemble Indian Squaws.

I lately spent three hours in the Museum of the Capitol, on the summit of the sacred hill. In the hall of the Gladiator I noticed an exquisite statue of Diana. There is a pure, virgin grace in the classic outlines of the figure that keeps the eye long upon it. The face is full of cold, majestic dignity, but it is the ideal of a being to be worshipped, rather than loved. The Faun of Praxiteles, in the same room, is a glorious work; it is the perfect embodiment of that wild, merry race the Grecian poets dreamed of. One looks on the Gladiator with a hushed breath and an awed spirit. He is dying; the blood flows more slowly from the deep wound in his side; his head is sinking downwards, and the arm that supports his body becomes more and more nerveless. You feel that a dull mist is coming over his vision, and almost wait to see his relaxing limbs sink suddenly on his shield. That the rude, barbarian form has a soul, may be read in his touchingly expressive countenance. It warms the sympathies like reality to look upon it. Yet how many Romans may have gazed on this work, moved nearly to tears, who have seen hundreds perish in the arena without a pitying emotion! Why is it that Art has a voice frequently more powerful than Nature?