promontories into the plain; and over all the sun and sky and
shadows of Italy.

[Illustration: CUPOLA OF ST. PETER'S.]

[Illustration: THE PINCIO, FROM THE VILLA BORGHESE.]

The prospect from the Priorato surpasses anything in Rome--even the
wonderful view from the Janiculum, even the enchanting outlook from the
Pincian Hill. But the last was at our very doors: we could go thither in
the morning to watch the white mist curl up from the valleys and hang
about the mountain-brows, and at noon, when even in January the cool
avenues and splashing fountains were grateful, and at sunset, when the
city lay before us steeped in splendor. That was the view of our daily
walks--the beloved view of which one thinks most often and fondly in
remembering Rome.

[Illustration: SORACTE.]

But it is in riding that one grows to feel most familiar with the Tiber
and all his Roman children, whether it be strolling somewhat sulkily in
a line with his banks by the Via Flaminia or the Via Cassia, impatient
to get away from their stones and dust to the soft, springing turf; or
hailing him from afar as a guide after losing one's self in the endless
undulations of the open country; or cantering over daffodil-sheeted
meadows beside the Anio at the foot of the grassy heights on which
Antemnae stood; or threading one's way doubtfully among the ravines which
intersect the course of the little Cremera as one goes to Veii. The last
is a most beautiful and interesting expedition, for, what with the
distance--more than twelve miles--and the difficulty of finding the way,
it is quite an enterprise. As one turns his horse's head away from the
river, off the high-road, to the high grassy flats, the whole Campagna
seems to lie before one like a vast table-land, with nothing between
one's self and Soracte as he lifts his heavy shoulder from the
plain--not half hidden by intervening mountains, as from some points of
view, but majestic and isolated, thirty miles away to the north. But
here, as in every other part of the Campagna, one cannot go far without
finding hillocks and hollows, long steep slopes and sudden little dells,
and, stranger still, unsuspected tracts of woodland, for the general
effect of the Roman landscape is quite treeless. So there is a few
miles' gallop across the trackless turf, sometimes asking the way of a
solitary shepherd, who looms up against the sky like a tower, sometimes
following it by faint landmarks, few and far between, o