horizon. Soon the train rushes across the sepulchral road of so many memories, and over the stones which we know were once trodden by the sandalled feet of St. Paul,—and so into the upland, to olive-gardens, whose silvery stems glisten against the brilliant green of the young corn, to dark cypress groves and pine-trees on the edge of terraced villas, and to fields divided by hedges of the graceful Spina Christi, the hallowed plant, said to have been brought to Italy by the returning crusaders, and to have come from the seed of the tree on Calvary, whence the sacred crown was woven. Thus we wind round the base of the green slopes encircling Monte Cavo, from which Castel Gandolfo looks down upon the Alban lake, and reach the station of Albano. Beyond this, upon the right, we overlook a plain historical with the sites of Pratica, Ardea, Antium, and Astura, to a wide expanse of blue sea. On the left Civita Lavinia rises with its tower on a fortified height; then Velletri with its orange roofs and wooded hills riven into gulfs of verdure; and then we enter a wilder and less wooded country, the valley of the Saccoa plain alternately narrow and wide; a very definite plain indeed, closed in by the Hernican hills on one side, and the Volscian mountains on the other, which rise abruptly out of it with rocky buttresses.

An omnibus met us at the Ferentino station, and took us the three miles up into the town, through a country where the most remarkable feature was the faggots, stacked high up in the maple-trees, pollarded for the purpose.

We found tolerable rooms at the little inn, and almost immediately set off in the omnibus again for Alatri. It is a long drive (much longer than usually described) of about two hours; you skirt the base of the Hernican mountains, and cross many running streams:

You are beginning to wonder where Alatri can be, when you see its huge Cyclopean walls rising against the sky at the end of a valley upon the left, and forming a terrace fit for Titans to walk upon, an architectural Stonehenge. The modern road winds into the town by a gradual ascent. The ancient approach is the earliest instance of a cordonnata, a hill-side broken by steps, such as the approach to the Roman Capitol. The streets are full of medieval houses, with gothic windows and loggias; and the two ancient churches have each a fine rose-window in the west front. But towering high above the buildings of all later ages are the Cyclopean walls of the Pelasgic city, forming a quadrangle, and quite perfect, as if they were finished yesterday: for though the stones are fitted together without cement, each is like a mass of rock, and the arched form of their fitting adds to their firmness. One of the ancient gates remains under a single horizontal stone measuring eighteen feet by nine. The figure of the Pelasgic god Priapus is repeatedly sculptured on the walls, and it has long been a semi-religious custom for the inhabitants to go out en masse to mutilate it on Easter Monday. The place is mentioned by Plautus, under the Greek form Αλάτριον: Strabo calls it Αλέτριον.

"Alatri, like Ferentino, was surrounded with walls, but the circle round the town has been almost entirely destroyed, and only the walls of the citadel remain, an astonishing monument of that period of civilization, and without parallel amongst the towns of Latium, so that to see so wonderful, so unparalleled a work, which may be compared with the buildings of Egypt, is well worth a fatiguing day's journey..

"The old citadel of Alatri (it is now called 'Civita '-the town, by itself) occupies the highest point in the place, and is now the site of the cathedral, for here, as at Ferentino, the bishopric has nestled within the

old fortress. And this hill, on the broad flat surface of which is the cathedral, is surrounded, supported, and surmounted by Cyclopean walls reaching to a height of from eighty to a hundred feet. When I saw and I walked round these constructions, of black Titanic stonework, to which the eye looks up with astonishment, so well preserved that they seem as if their age might be reckoned not by thousands of years but by years, I was impelled to much greater admiration of human power than the sight of the Coliseum of Rome had inspired. For in times of advanced civilization, with many complete mechanical appliances, amphitheatres or public baths like those of Caracalla or Constantine might be piled up, without imputing anything extraordinary to the strength of man; and even the walls of Dionysius of Syracuse, the grandest of such creations which I had yet seen, do not make an equal impression. But here we see before us walls, each stone of which is not a huge square but a block of irregular shape, many-sided, hewn out of the rock; and if we ask in wonder by what mechanical means such huge masses of rock could be lifted up and piled one upon another, still less can we understand how it was possible to arrange the manycornered blocks so artistically that they fit into one another exactly without leaving spaces to be filled up, and form a complete gigantic mosaic.

"Tradition ascribes this species of ancient Latin buildings to the time of Saturn, and so places them altogether before the time of historical civilization; but scientific research, which occupies itself so much with Indo-Germanic and Pelasgic races in Italy, is forced to confess that it knows nothing of the nations which piled up these works. Their appearance shows that the race of men which built such walls must have possessed already a considerable material civilization and well-ordered political arrangements. As these Cyclopean towns are found near one another, and scattered over the whole of Latium, it follows that in this country a great number of independent republics or states were established in very ancient times, whose connection with one another we do not know. But such immense fortifications imply constant war between the different towns, and particularly a predatory, unsafe, and isolated state of life. To bring the strength of the men into a suitable proportion to the colossal dimensions of the works, one must imagine those who erected them, or who came as enemies to storm them, to have been regular giants. But these erections only point to that colossal period with which the civilization of men in all nations and in all parts of the world begins, till it gradually rises from the materially sublime to the representation of things pleasing and beautiful, which more perfect means render possible. Altogether these Cyclopean works should not

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be placed in too dark a time; perhaps some of them may have been built in Latium after Rome was founded, and the step from this manycornered style of building to the hardly less colossal square stone walls of the Etruscans and Romans is by no means a long one.

"Out of the walls of this Capitol of the ancient Alatri led a principal gate which exists still, an enormous erection made of horizontal stones; besides this there is also a smaller entrance, and three square niches in the south wall lead to the conclusion that images of gods may have been set up there, while at the same time Cyclopean remains in the middle of the castle may with some probability be held to be the public altar on which festive sacrifices were offered.

"Till the year 1843 these walls were half buried under ruins and creepers, and no road led round them. A visit of Gregory XVI. inspired the Alatrians with the happy thought of cleaning and clearing out such unparalleled monuments of the remotest antiquity; so 2000 men worked for ten days at removing the rubbish, and thus the Acropolis was not only laid bare again but surrounded with a road called Via Gregoriana, by which one can walk round it comfortably. Then too the great gate was dug out, and the ascent to the plateau re-opened. This broad flat space is only surrounded by a stone bulwark, which rises above the Cyclopean wall, and as it contains no building but the cathedral, it admits a most charming view of the mountain scenery. And indeed the beautiful surroundings make such an enchanting picture, that I will not attempt to describe it in words, or even to indicate the lines of the mountains which rise from Elysian fields to the sunny blue above. In the perfect stillness and indeed deserted condition of this strange scene of remote civilization, the impression of the sublime is doubly effective."-Gregorovius.

Within the precincts of the Pelasgic fortress stands the Cathedral. It only dates from the last century, though the see was created in A.D. 551; but it is a conspicuous feature in all distant views of the town. A finer church is that of S. Maria Maggiore, which has three gothic portals in its west front, and a fine rose-window above them. The mouldings are richly ornamented with acanthus. It had formerly two towers, but only one remains. The interior is completely modernized. From the heights overhanging the Cyclopean walls are wild views over the Volscian and

Hernican hills, the most prominent feature being a bare mountain, crowned by a little town and a grove of cypresses. This is Fumone, the scene of the imprisonment and death of the abdicated hermit-Pope, Celestine V., immured here by the jealousy of his successor, Boniface VIII., though the next Pope, Clement V., enrolled him amongst the saints. In old days Fumone was carefully watched, for its lord had feudal rights over all the surrounding country, and, when he wished to summon his vassals, either in defence or attack, he lighted a bonfire on his hill-top, whence the proverb,"Quando Fumone fuma, tutta la campagna trema." The

people of Alatri are magnificently handsome, and as the women come down the steep stairs under the great gateway,