darkness. A statue by Raggi commemorates his presence here; a basket is
a memorial of that lowered with his food by St. Romanus; an ancient bell
is shown as that which rang to announce its approach. As we descend the
Scala Santa trodden by the feet of Benedict, and ascended by the monks
upon their knees, the solemn beauty of the place increases at every
step. On the right is a powerful fresco of Death mowing down the young
and sparing the old; on the left, the Preacher shows the young and
thoughtless the three states to which the body is reduced after death.
Lastly, we reach the Holy of Holies, the second cave, in which Benedict
laid down the rule of his order, making its basis the twelve degrees of
humility. Here also an inscription enumerates the wonderful series of
saints, who, issuing from Subiaco, founded the Benedictine Order
throughout the world.

ETRUSCAN VOLTERRA[32]

BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

For several miles before reaching Volterra, our attention was fixt by
the extraordinary aspect of the country through which we were passing.
The road gradually ascended, and we found ourselves among deep ravines
and steep, high, broken banks, principally of clay, barren, and in most
places wholly bare of herbage, a scene of complete desolation, were it
not for a cottage here and there perched upon the heights, a few sheep
attended by a boy and a dog grazing on the brink of one of the
precipices, or a solitary patch of bright green wheat in some spot where
the rains had not yet carried away the vegetable mold.

In the midst of this desolate tract, which is, however, here and there
interspersed with fertile spots, rises the mountain on which Volterra is
situated, where the inhabitants breathe a pure and keen atmosphere,
almost perpetually cool, and only die of pleurisies and apoplexies;
while below, on the banks of the Cecina, which in full sight winds its
way to the sea, they die of fevers. One of the ravines of which I have
spoken--the "balza," they call it at Volterra--has plowed a deep chasm
on the north side of this mountain, and is every year rapidly
approaching the city on its summit. I stood on its edge and looked down
a bank of soft, red earth five hundred feet in height. A few rods in
front of me I saw where a road had crossed the spot in which the gulf
now yawned; the tracks of the last year's carriages were seen reaching
to the edge on both sides. The ruins of a convent were close at hand,
the inma