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PENCIL SKETCHES IN ROME. 315
di Roma ; and under the impression of a first view of
her, Rome is a corpse, around the brow of which has been
woven a chaplet of green.
The western limit of the Campagna is the sea, from
Civita Vecchia to Terracina ; a strip of coast about six-
teen Swedish miles in length. Towards whatever quarter
one goes out from Rome, he must travel more than two
Swedish miles to find a spot that can be called peopled.
Something that stands for a country-house, a tenant’s
dwelling, he may indeed meet with, here and there ; but
during the summer and autumn, the door of the " casale
"
is commonly as inaccessible as its iron-barred windows:
the tenant and his immediate family have during the
malaria and fever fled to Rome or up to the mountains.
Mount Soracte, which on the north marks its zigzag lines
against the sky, lies about four miles* away from Rome.
From Rome to Albano is two miles and a half, to Tivoli
three, to the mouths of the Tiber about three, to Civita
Vecchia more than seven, and to Terracina over nine.
These districts, one may during certain months of the
year travel over, almost without meeting a human
creature.
Yet here lay formerly more than twenty cities, more
than fifty populous, self-governed settlements. One
could look from the walls of one city to those of the
other, over farm after farm, field after field. What is
now a wilderness, once embraced the Latium of history,
where in the cabins of a free peasantry grew that strength,
and that feeling for law and discipline, which later, when
Rome became leader of the Latin confederacy, created
an empire of the world. Here, the plough, high in honor,
* Swedish miles.
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