ey left him an example
of an administration without an equal in history. But the heritage was
accepted without the responsibilities attached to it.

I will no longer conceal from you that this magnificent territory
appeared to me in the first place most unworthily cultivated. From
Civita Vecchia to Rome, a distance of some sixteen leagues,
cultivation struck me in the light of a very rare accident, to which
the soil was but little accustomed. Some pasture fields, some land in
fallow, plenty of brambles, and, at long intervals, a field with oxen
at plough, this is what the traveller will see in April. He will not
even meet with the occasional forest which he finds in the most desert
regions of Turkey. It seems as if man had swept across the land to
destroy everything, and the soil had been then taken possession of by
flocks and herds.

The country round Rome resembles the road from Civita Vecchia. The
capital is girt by a belt of uncultivated, but not unfertile land. I
used to walk in every direction, and sometimes for a long distance;
the belt seemed very wide. However, in proportion as I receded from
the city, I found the fields better cultivated. One would suppose that
at a certain distance from St. Peter's the peasants worked with
greater relish. The roads, which near Rome are detestable, became
gradually better; they were more frequented, and the people I met
seemed more cheerful. The inns became habitable, by comparison, in an
astonishing degree. Still, so long as I remained in that part of the
country towards the Mediterranean, of which Rome is the centre, and
which is more directly subject to its influence, I found that the
appearance of the land always left something to be desired. I
sometimes fancied that these honest labourers worked as if they were
afraid to make a noise, lest, by smiting the soil too deeply and too
boldly, they should wake up the dead of past ages.

But when once I had crossed the Apennines, when I was beyond the reach
of the breeze which blew over the capital, I began to inhale an
atmosphere of labour and goodwill that cheered my heart. The fields
were not only dug, but manured, and, still better, planted and sown.
The smell of manure was quite new to me. I had never met with it on
the other side of the Apennines. I was delighted at the sight of
trees. There were rows of vines twining around elms planted in fields
of hemp, wheat, or clover. In some places the vines and elms were
replace