Italy from the Alps to Mount Etna . OF THE SHORES OF LA GO FUCINO TO THE PONTINE MARSHES. 329 jagged ravine : all is waste, wild, inhospitable, and desolate. Luxury reigns not in thesemountains ; here reign only poverty and privation. The gay colours of the garmentswhich we see in the plain,—red, green, and light blue,—are not found here. The racethat inhabits these fastnesses clothes itself in sombre brown and a deep blackish blue ;sad hues, but yet more really picturesque than the bright and crude ones of the muchadmired costume pictures. The mediaeval baronial castle is deserted. The breed
Italy from the Alps to Mount Etna . OF THE SHORES OF LA GO FUCINO TO THE PONTINE MARSHES. 329 jagged ravine : all is waste, wild, inhospitable, and desolate. Luxury reigns not in thesemountains ; here reign only poverty and privation. The gay colours of the garmentswhich we see in the plain,—red, green, and light blue,—are not found here. The racethat inhabits these fastnesses clothes itself in sombre brown and a deep blackish blue ;sad hues, but yet more really picturesque than the bright and crude ones of the muchadmired costume pictures. The mediaeval baronial castle is deserted. The breed ofspiders which once dwelt here has departed, and has left nothing behind it on the barren. LE MAMELLE, NEAR CIVITELLA. rock, save the wretched dwellings of Segni, like the sucked-out bodies of Volscian is nothing to detain us here, although from the height of the Cyclopean walls,where the Arx or citadel once stood, we might enjoy a classical view over the wholecountry we have come through. Behind Segni, where the spicy sea-wind is blowing, begins the forest,—the primevalforest. We know that beyond these woods the wide plain of the Pontine Marshesstretches to the sea, and that thence we shall behold the sea itself in its sublime beauty andgreatness, and we long to add wings to our feet. But this silent, virgin Nature, has itsown charms : not those of a soft Venus couched on roses, but the unapproachable, solemnbeauty of the northern Valkyrie, who has laid herself to slumber on the woodland forests of these mountains are so magnificent, so deep, so awful almost,—so solitaryand mysterious, solemn and obscure, that we can find no words worthily to paint
Size: 1988px × 1257px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookauthorcavagnasangiulianidig, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870
