drifts of hawthorn and honeysuckle wreaths waved on the summits of
those on which a sufficient depth of soil had lodged; the wild
dog-rose spread its thorny bushes and passionate-coloured crimson
blooms as a fence around others; and even on the barest of them
nothing could exceed the wealth of orange lichens that redeemed their
poverty and gilded their nakedness with frescoes of fadeless beauty.
On some of the rugged masses of masonry grew large hoary tufts of the
strange roccella or orchil-weed, which yields the famous purple
dye--with which, in all likelihood, the robes of the Caesars were
coloured--and which gave wealth, rank, and name to one princely
Italian family, the Rucellai. Over the desolate tombs of those who
wore the imperial purple, this humble lichen, that yielded the
splendid hue, spread its gray hoar-frost of vegetation.

I have already spoken of the solitude of the Campagna; but this part
of the Appian Way, leading through it, is exceptionally lonely. It
might as well have led over an American prairie or Asiatic steppe on
which the foot of man had never intruded. You see along the white
reaches of the road at a little distance what looks like a cluster of
houses overshadowed by some tall umbrella pine, with all the signs of
human life apparently about them; but, as you come near, the sight
resolves itself into a mere mass of ruins. The mirage of life turns
out to be a tomb--nay, the ruin of a tomb! A carriage full of visitors
may, perhaps, be seen at long intervals, their spirits sobered by the
melancholy that broods over the scene; or a lumbering cart, laden with
wine-casks from Ariccia or Albano, drawn by the soft-eyed
mouse-coloured oxen of the Campagna, startles the echoes, and betrays
its course by the clouds of dust which it raises. There are no sights
or sounds of rural toil in the fields on either side of the way. Only
a solitary shepherd, with his picturesque cloak, accompanied by two or
three vicious-looking dogs, meets you; or, perhaps, you come
unexpectedly upon an artist seated on a tomb and busy sketching the
landscape. For hours you may have the scene all to yourself. Even
Rome, from this distance, looks like a city of dreams! Its walls and
domes have disappeared behind the misty green veil of the horizon; and
only the colossal statues of the apostles on the top of the church of
S. John Lateran stand out in a halo of golden light, and seem to
stretch forth their hands to welcome the appro