One Meets Occasionally With The Ruins
Of Old Castles On Some Of The Heights, And I Was Strongly Reminded, At The
Sight Of These Antique Edifices, Of The Mysteries Of Udolpho And The Times
Of The Condottieri.
The silence that reigns here is only interrupted by the
noise of the waterfall and the occasional scream of the eagle.
The wild
abrupt transition of landscape would suggest the idea of haunting places
for robbers, yet one seldom or never hears of any, on this road. In Tuscany
there is, I understand, so much industry and morality, that a robbery is a
thing unknown; but in his Holiness's dominions, from the idleness and
poverty that prevails, they are said to be frequent. Why it does not occur
in these mountains, in that part of them, at least, which belongs to the
Papal Government, I am at a loss to conceive.
Here the chesnut and olive trees salute the Ultramontane traveller for the
first time. The olive tree, tho' a most useful, is not an ornamental one,
as it resembles a willow or osier in its trunk and in the colour of its
leaves. The chesnut tree is a glorious plant for an indolent people, since
it furnishes food without labour, as the Xaca or Jack fruit tree does
to the Cingalese in Ceylon. On one of the heights between Pianoro and
Lojano you have in very clear weather a view of both the Adriatic and
Tyrrhene seas. We brought to the night at Scarica l'Asino and the next
morning early we entered the Tuscan territory at Pietra Mala, where there
is a Douane and consequently an examination of trunks.
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