Velletri is a large town or rather city situated on a mountain, to which you ascend by a winding road skirting a beautiful forest. From the terrace of one of the Palazzi here, you have a superb view of all the plain below as far as the rock of Circe, comprehending the Pontine marshes. There are several very fine buildings at Velletri, and it is remarkable as being the birthplace of Augustus Caesar. There is a spacious Piazza too on which stands a bronze statue of Pope Urban VIII. Velletri is twenty-eight miles from Rome.
The next morning, the 27th, we started early so as to arrive by six o'clock in the evening at Terracina. At Cisterna is a post-house and at Torre tre Ponti is a convent, a beautiful building, but now delapidated and neglected. Near it is a wretched inn, where however you are always sure to find plenty of game to eat. Here begin the Pontine marshes and the famous Appian road which runs in a right line for twenty-five miles across the marshes. It was repaired and perfectly reconstructed by Pius VI, and from him it bears its present appellation of Linea Pia. This convent and church were also constructed by Pius VI with a view to facilitate the draining and cultivating of the marshes by affording shelter to the workmen. The Linea Pia is a very fine chaussée considerably raised above the level of the marsh, well paved, lined with trees and a canal sunk on one side to carry off the waters. The Pontine marshes extend all the way from Torre tre Ponti to Terracina. On the left hand side, on travelling from Rome to Naples, you have two miles or thereabouts of plain bounded by lofty mountains; on the right a vast marshy plain bounded by the sea at a distance of seven or eight miles. Nothing can be more monotonous than this strait road twenty-five miles in length, and the same landscape the whole way. The air is extremely damp, aguish and unhealthy. Those who travel late in the evening or early in the morning are recommended not to let down the glasses of the carriage, in order to avoid inhaling the pestilential miasma from the marshes, which even the canal has not been able to drain sufficiently.
No one can find amusement in this desolate region but the sportsman; and he may live in continual enjoyment, and slay wild ducks and snipes in abundance; a number of buffaloes are to be seen grazing on the marshes. They are not to be met with to the North of Rome. They resemble entirely the buffaloes of Egypt and India, being black, and they are very terrific looking animals to the northern traveller, who beholds them here for the first time.
These marshes supply Rome abundantly with waterfowl and other game of all kinds. Every vetturino who is returning to Rome, on passing by, buys a quantity, for a mere trifle, from the peasantry, who employ themselves much à la chasse, and he is certain to sell them again at Rome for three or four times the price he paid, and even then it appears marvellous cheap to an Englishman, accustomed as he is to pay a high price for game in his own country.
We arrived a little before six at Terracina, which is on the banks of the Mediterranean and may be distinguished at a great distance by its white buildings. The chain of mountains on the left of our road hither form a sort of arch to the chord of the linea Pia and terminates one end of the arch by meeting the linea Pia at Terracina, which forms what the sailors call a bluff point. Terracina stands on the situation of the ancient Anxur and the description of it by Horace in his Brundusian journey;
Impositum saxis late candentibus Anxur[94]
is perfectly applicable even now. It is a handsome looking city and is the last town in the Pope's territory: part of it is situated on the mountain and part on the plain at its foot close to the sea.
The fine white buildings on the heights, the temple of Jupiter Anxurus (of which the façade and many columns remain entire) towering above them, the orange trees and the sea, afford a view doubly pleasing and grateful to the traveller after the dreary landscape of the Pontine Marshes. There is but one inn at Terracina but that is a very large one; there is, however, but very indifferent fare and bad attendance. The innkeeper is a sad over-reaching rascal, who fleeces in the most unmerciful manner the traveller who is not spesato. He is obliged to furnish those who are spesati with supper and lodging at the vetturino's price; but he always grumbles at it, gives the worst supper he can and bestows it as if he were giving alms. As the road between Terracina and Fondi (the first Neapolitan town) is said to be at times infested by robbers, few travellers care to start till broad daylight. We did so accordingly the following morning. On arriving at a place called the Epitafio, from there being an ancient tomb there, we took leave of the last Roman post. At one mile and half beyond the Epitafio is the first Neapolitan post at a place called Torre de' Confini, where we were detained half an hour to have our passports examined and our portmanteaus searched. Three miles beyond this post is the miserable and dirty town of Fondi, wherein our baggage again underwent a strict search. On leaving Terracina the road strikes inland and has mountains covered with wood to the right and to the left, nor do we behold the sea again till just before we arrive at Mola di Gaeta, which is an exceeding long straggling town on its banks; several fishing vessels lie here and it is here that part of the Bay of Naples begins to open. The country from Terracina to Fondi is uncultivated and very mountainous; between Fondi and Mola di Gaeta it is pretty well cultivated; Itri, thro' which we passed, is a long, dirty, wretched looking village.
The next day at twelve o'clock we arrived and stopped to dine at St Agatha, a miserable village, with a very bad tho' spacious inn the half of which is unroofed. We arrived at Capua the same evening having passed the rivers Garigliano and Volturno, and leaving the Falernian Hills on our left during part of the road. The landscape is very varied on this route, sometimes mountainous, sometimes thro' a rich plain in full cultivation.
Capua is a fortified town situated in a flat country and marshy withal. It is a gloomy, dirty looking city and whatever may have been its splendour and allurements in ancient times, it at present offers nothing inviting or remarkable. The lower classes of the people of this town are such thieves that our vetturino recommended us to remove every thing from the carriage into our bed rooms, so that we had the trouble of repacking every thing next morning. Capua is the only place on the whole route where it is necessary to take the trunks from the carriage. From Capua to Naples is twenty miles; a little beyond Capua are the remains of a large Amphitheatre and this is all that exists to attest the splendour of ancient Capua. The road between Capua and Naples presents on each side one of the richest and most fruitful countries I ever beheld. It is a perfect garden the whole way. The chaussée is lined with fruit trees. Halfway is the town or borgo of Aversa which is large, well-built, opulent and populous. We entered Naples at one o'clock, drove thro' the strada di Toledo and from thence to the largo di Medina where we put up at the inn called the Aquila nera. A cordon of Austrian troops lines the whole high road from Fondi to the gates of Naples; and there are double sentries at a distance of one mile from each other the whole way.