The Following Day At Ten O'clock We Reached The Small
Town Of Narni.
Here are the remains of a beautiful bridge, constructed over
the ravine, thro' which flows the river Nera, and which was built in the
time of Augustus.
It affords a very favorable specimen of the Roman bridge
architecture. There is a small chapel here, and it contains, engraved on a
stone, a description of a miracle wrought here about four years ago by the
Virgin Mary, who saved the life of a postillion. He went into the river to
water his horses, when he was carried off by the torrent and would have
been drowned, had not the Virgin, on her aid being invoked, dashed into the
river and haled him out by the hair of his head. Of this story, to use a
phrase of old Josephus,[115] every one may believe as much as he thinks
proper; but certain it is that the postillion made oath (which oath is
registered) that his life was saved by the Virgin Mary in this manner, and
he has put up a votive tablet at her shrine, which remains to this day,
commemorative of the event. There is also a Roman aqueduct in the
neighbourhood, eleven Italian miles in length.
We arrived at Terni at three o'clock and immediately hired a caleche (the
other travellers and myself) to visit the famous cascade of the Velino,
about three miles distant from the town of Terni. The road thither is very
rugged, and is a continual ascent on the flank of a ravine. For a long time
before you arrive on the brink of the cascade, you hear the roaring of the
waters; and it certainly is the most magnificent and awe-inspiring sight of
the kind I ever beheld. It is far more stupendous than any cascade in
Switzerland. That of Tivoli compared to it is as an infant six months old
to a Goliath. The Velino forms three successive falls, and the last is
tremendous, since it falls from a height of 1,068 feet into the abyss
below. The foam and the froth it occasions is terrific; and the spray
ascends so high that in standing at the distance of fifty yards from the
fall you become as wet as if you had been standing in a shower of rain. The
first fall it forms is of 800 feet; the second little less; the third I
have stated already. No painting can possibly give a faithful delineation
of this, and very possibly no poetic description can give an adequate idea
thereof. We passed the whole night at Terni and the next morning we stopped
to dine at Spoleto. The same evening we arrived at Foligno. Spoleto is a
neat town and well paved. Several ruins of ancient buildings are in its
vicinity. Before you arrive there, on the left of the road, is an immensely
high two-arched bridge. There is an aqueduct likewise just outside the
town.
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