ten of oil. It was nearly sunset when we reached
Pellago, and the wet walk and coarse fare we were obliged to take on the
road, well qualified us to enjoy the excellent supper the pleasant
landlady gave us.

This little town is among the Appenines, at the foot of the magnificent
mountain of Vallombrosa. What a blessing it was for Milton, that he saw
its loveliness before his eyes closed on this beautiful earth, and
gained from it another hue in which to dip his pencil, when he painted
the bliss of Eden! I watched the hills all day as we approached them,
and thought how often his eyes had rested on their outlines, and how he
had carried their forms in his memory for many a sunless year. The
banished Dante, too, had trodden them, flying from his ungrateful
country; and many another, whose genius has made him a beacon in the
dark sea of the world's history. It is one of those places where the
enjoyment is all romance, and the blood thrills as we gaze upon it.

We started early next morning, crossed the ravine, and took the
well-paved way to the monastery along the mountain side. The stones are
worn smooth by the sleds in which ladies and provisions are conveyed up,
drawn by the beautiful white Tuscan oxen. The hills are covered with
luxuriant chesnut and oak trees, of those picturesque forms which they
only wear in Italy: one wild dell in particular is much resorted to by
painters for the ready-made foregrounds it supplies. Further on, we
passed the _Paterno_, a rich farm belonging to the Monks. The vines
which hung from tree to tree, were almost breaking beneath clusters as
heavy and rich as those which the children of Israel bore on staves from
the Promised Land. Of their flavor, we can say, from experience, they
were worthy to have grown in Paradise. We then entered a deep dell of
the mountain, where little shepherd girls were sitting on the rocks
tending their sheep and spinning with their fingers from a distaff, in
the same manner, doubtless, as the Roman shepherdesses two thousand
years ago. Gnarled, gray olive trees, centuries old, grew upon the bare
soil, and a little rill fell in many a tiny cataract down the glen. By a
mill, in one of the coolest and wildest nooks I ever saw, two of us
acted the part of water-spirits under one of these, to the great
astonishment of four peasants, who watched us from a distance.

Beyond, our road led through forests of chesnut and oak, and a broad
view of mountain and vale lay b