It is volcanic, brown, and
dry; large intervals of crumbling soil, and then a stiff, wiry,
uncompromising-looking tussock
Of the very hardest grass; then perhaps a
flax bush, or, as we should have said, a flax plant; then more crumbly,
brown, dry soil, mixed with fine but dried grass, and then more
tussocks; volcanic rock everywhere cropping out, sometimes red and
tolerably soft, sometimes black and abominably hard. There was a great
deal, too, of a very uncomfortable prickly shrub, which they call
Irishman, and which I do not like the look of at all. There were cattle
browsing where they could, but to my eyes it seemed as though they had
but poor times of it. So we continued to climb, panting and broiling in
the afternoon sun, and much admiring the lovely view beneath. At last
we near the top, and look down upon the plain, bounded by the distant
Apennines, that run through the middle of the island. Near at hand, at
the foot of the hill, we saw a few pretty little box-like houses in
trim, pretty little gardens, stacks of corn and fields, a little river
with a craft or two lying near a wharf, whilst the nearer country was
squared into many-coloured fields. But, after all, the view was rather
of the "long stare" description. There was a great extent of country,
but very few objects to attract the eye and make it rest any while in
any given direction.
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