ough a narrow issue to the outer world. And this
stranded and shipwrecked fortress in the midst of so wild a scene is all
that exists to mark where Veii stood, the powerful city which kept Rome
at bay for ten years, and fell at length by stratagem! Its site was
forgotten for nearly two thousand years, but in this century the
discovery of some tombs revealed the secret.

[Illustration: VEII, FROM THE CAMPAGNA.]

[Illustration: TIVOLI.]

The scenery differs entirely on different sides of Rome. Here there is
not a ruin, not a vestige, except a few low heaps of stone-or brickwork
hidden by weeds: on the other, toward Tivoli, much of the beauty is due
to the work of man--the stately remnants of ancient aqueduct, temple and
tomb; the tall square towers of feudal barons, round which cluster low
farm-buildings scarcely less old and solid; the vast, gloomy grottoes of
Cerbara, which look like the underground palace of a bygone race, but
which are the tufa-quarries of classic times; the ruined baths of
Zenobia, where the rushing milky waters of the Aquae Albulae fill the air
with sulphurous fumes; and, as a climax, the Villa of Hadrian, less a
country-place than a whole region, a town-in-country, with palace,
temples, circus, theatres, baths amidst a tract of garden and
pleasure-ground ten miles in circumference. Even when one is familiar
with the enormous height and bulk of the Coliseum or the Baths of
Caracalla, the extent of the ruins of Hadrian's Villa is overwhelming.
Numerous fragments are still standing, graceful and elegant, but a vast
many more are buried deep under turf and violets and fern: large
cypresses and ilexes have struck root among their stones, and they form
artificial hills and vales and great wide plateaus covered with herbage
and shrubbery, hardly to be distinguished from the natural accidents of
the land. The solitude is as immense as the space. After leaving our
carriage we wandered about for hours, sometimes lying in the sunshine at
the edge of a great grassy terrace which commands the Campagna and the
Agro Romano--beyond whose limits we had come--to where, like a little
bell, St. Peter's dome hung faint and blue upon the horizon; sometimes
exploring the innumerable porticoes and galleries, and replacing in
fancy the Venus de Medici, the Dancing Faun, and all the other shapes of
beauty which once occupied these ravished pedestals and niches;
sometimes rambling about the flowery fields, and up and down