“Caffè due soldi la tazza (Coffee two cents a cup)!” cried the waiter.
“Pronti (Ready)!” roared the guard.
“Taratara!” screamed the station master’s horn.
“Partenza!” and that was the last we saw of Monte Compatri Colonna.
Between Colonna and Palestrina Patsy allowed us to enjoy the view, really well worth seeing. We had enchanting glimpses of the Alban, Sabine, and Volscian mountains; the valleys between blazed with wild-flowers. At the station the party divided, Mr. Z——, the expert on polygonal walls, and the rest going in the stage, Patsy, Helen, and ourselves crowding into a botte.
“The trouble with those fellows is,” said Patsy, “that they know too much of one thing and too little of anything else. You’d be talked to death and sick of the subject if I had not come along to save your lives.”
“I should like to know what we have come to see,” I feebly protested.
“Nonsense,” said Helen, “they have crammed it all out of books, you can cram a great deal better afterwards. It takes the edge off to read too much about a thing before you see it. Don’t read the guide-book till you have seen the thing and got your own impression neat.”
The road from the station leads up a sharp incline, winding through the steep and dirty streets of Palestrina, a hillside town, which stands upon the ruins of the Colonna’s mediæval stronghold, which again stands upon the ancient town of Præneste, extolled by the Latin poets. That Præneste, with its magnificent Temple of Fortune, the resort of the fashionable Romans of the days of Mæcenas, seems modern compared to the ancient Præneste, whose ruins are found beneath it, and whose arx was the spot chosen for the picnic luncheon. It was a stiff climb. We left the carriage at Castel San Pietro and scrambled to the summit where that magnificent and indomitable race—Castellane calls them the Italiotti—built their citadel. Here we saw the ruins of the polygonal (we used to call them cyclopean) walls. Astonishing structures, making the walls of the three later periods—the latest, exquisite brick-work of the Empire—seem by comparison like the work of children! The huge rocks are fitted together without cement of any sort, and in some places the walls look as solid as the day they were built, long before Rome was! To make room for our table-cloth, an old shepherd obligingly drove his sheep a little lower down the mountain. He was knitting stockings for one of his grandchildren; he has four to bring up. Their mother is dead, their father—he went years ago to Buenos Ayres—has ceased to write or to send them money.
A pretty girl spinning with a distaff asked shyly if she could help us. Patsy sent her for water while he set the table.