arm, we determined to have a bath. So we ran
down the plain, which was covered with a thick coat of sulphur, and
sounded hollow to our tread, till we reached a convenient place, where
we threw off our clothes, and plunged in. The warm wave was delightful
to the skin, but extremely offensive to the smell, and when we came out,
our mouths and throats were filled with the stifling gas.

It was growing dark as we mounted through the narrow streets of Tivoli,
but we endeavored to gain some sight of the renowned beauties of the
spot, before going to rest. From a platform on a brow of the hill, we
looked down into the defile, at whose bottom the Anio was roaring, and
caught a sideward glance of the Cascatelles, sending up their spray
amid the evergreen bushes that fringe the rocks. Above the deep glen
that curves into the mountain, stands the beautiful temple of the
Sybil--a building of the most perfect and graceful proportion. It crests
the "rocky brow" like a fairy dwelling, and looks all the lovelier for
the wild caverns below. Gazing downward from the bridge, one sees the
waters of the Anio tumbling into the picturesque grotto of the Sirens;
around a rugged corner, a cloud of white spray whirls up continually,
while the boom of a cataract rumbles down the glen. All these we marked
in the deepening dusk, and then hunted an albergo.

The shrill-voiced hostess gave us a good supper and clean beds; in
return we diverted the people very much by the relation of our sulphur
bath. We were awakened in the night by the wind shaking the very soul
out of our loose casement. I fancied I heard torrents of rain dashing
against the panes, and groaned in bitterness of spirit on thinking of a
walk back to Rome in such weather. When morning came, we found it was
only a hurricane of wind which was strong enough to tear off pieces of
the old roofs. I saw some capuchins nearly overturned in crossing the
square, by the wind seizing their white robes.

I had my fingers frozen and my eyes filled with sand, in trying to draw
the Sybil's temple, and therefore left it to join my companions, who had
gone down into the glen to see the great cascade. The Anio bursts out of
a cavern in the mountain-side, and like a prisoner giddy with recovered
liberty, reels over the edge of a precipice more than two hundred feet
deep. The bottom is hid in a cloud of boiling spray, that shifts from
side to side, and driven by the wind, sweeps whistling down the narrow