of one of the loftiest Appenines on our left. The abundant
fruit of the olive was beginning to turn brown, and the grapes were all
gathered in from the vineyards, but we learned from a peasant boy that
the vintage was not finished at Pratolino.

We finally arrived at an avenue shaded with sycamores, leading to the
royal park. The vintagers were busy in the fields around, unloading the
vines of their purple tribute, and many a laugh and jest among the merry
peasants enlivened the toil. We assisted them in disposing of some fine
clusters, and then sought the "Colossus of the Appenines." He stands
above a little lake, at the head of a long mountain-slope, broken with
clumps of magnificent trees. This remarkable figure, the work of John of
Bologna, impresses one like a relic of the Titans. He is represented as
half-kneeling, supporting himself with one hand, while the other is
pressed upon the head of a dolphin, from which a little stream falls
into the lake. The height of the figure when erect, would amount to more
than sixty feet! We measured one of the feet, which is a single piece of
rock, about eight feet long; from the ground to the top of one knee is
nearly twenty feet. The limbs are formed of pieces of stone, joined
together, and the body of stone and brick. His rough hair and eyebrows,
and the beard, which reached nearly to the ground, are formed of
stalactites, taken from caves, and fastened together in a dripping and
crusted mass. These hung also from his limbs and body, and gave him the
appearance of Winter in his mail of icicles. By climbing up the rocks at
his back, we entered his body, which contains a small-sized room; it was
even possible to ascend through his neck and look out at his ear! The
face is in keeping with the figure--stern and grand, and the architect
(one can hardly say sculptor) has given to it the majestic air and
sublimity of the Appenines. But who can build up _an image of the Alp_?

We visited the factory on the estate, where wine and oil are made. The
men had just brought in a cart load of large wooden vessels, filled with
grapes, which they were mashing with heavy wooden pestles. When the
grapes were pretty well reduced to pulp and juice, they emptied them
into an enormous tub, which they told us would be covered air-tight, and
left for three or four weeks, after which the wine would be drawn off at
the bottom. They showed us also a great stone mill for grinding olives;
this estate of t