glory of that into which I had entered. It was not
yet noon, and the morning mists were not yet wholly dissipated. The Alps
and the Apennines were imprisoned in a shroud of vapour. Nevertheless
the scene was a noble one. Lombardy was level as the sea. I have seen as
level and as circular an expanse from a ship's deck, when out of sight
of land, but nowhere else. One of the most prominent features of the
scene were the long straight rows of the Lombardy poplar, which, rooted
in its native soil, and drinking its native waters, shoots up into the
most goodly stature and the most graceful form. And then, there were
glimpses of beautifully green meadows, and long silvery lines of canals;
and all over the plain there peeped out from amidst rich woods, the
white walls of hamlets and towns, and the tall, slender Campanile. The
country towards the north was remarkably populous. From the gates of
Milan to the skirts of the mists that veiled the Alps the plain was all
a-gleam with white-walled villages, beautifully embowered. A fairer
picture, or one more suggestive of peace and happiness, is perhaps
nowhere to be seen. But, alas! past experience had taught me, that these
dwellings, so lovely when seen from afar, would sink, on a near
approach, into ill-furnished and filthy hovels, with inmates groaning
under the double burden of ignorance and poverty.

When the more distant objects allowed me to attend to those at hand, I
found that I was not alone on the Cathedral's roof. There were around me
an assembly of some thousands. The only moving figure, it is true, was
myself: the rest stood mute and motionless, each in his little house of
stone; but so eloquent withal, in both look and gesture, that you half
expected to find yourself addressed by some one in this life-like crowd
of figures.

I ascended to the different levels by steps on the flying buttresses. A
winding staircase in a turret of open tracery next carried me to the
Octagon, where I found myself surrounded by a new zone of statues. Here
I again made a long halt, admiring the landscape as seen under this new
elevation, and doing my best to scrape acquaintance with my new
companions. I now prepared for my final ascent. Entering the spire, I
ascended its winding staircase, and came out at the foot of the pyramid
that crowns the edifice. Higher I could not go. Here I stood at a height
of about three hundred and fifty feet, looking down upon the city and
the plain. I had le