long line stretching down the middle of the country to
represent the Apennines. But let us carry on this a little
further, and give life and meaning and harmony to what is at
present at once lifeless and confused. Observe, in the first
place, how the Apennine line, beginning from the southern
extremity of the Alps, runs across Italy to the very edge of
the Adriatic, and thus separates naturally the Italy proper of
the Romans, from Cisalpine Gaul. Observe again, how the Alps,
after running north and south, where they divide Italy from
France, turn then away to the eastward, running almost parallel
to the Apennines, till they too touch the head of the Adriatic,
on the confines of Istria. Thus between these two lines of
mountains there is enclosed one great basin or plain; enclosed
on three sides by mountains, open only on the east to the sea.
Observe how widely it spreads itself out, and then see how well
it is watered. One great river flows through it in its whole
extent, and this is fed by streams almost unnumbered,
descending towards it on either side, from the Alps on the one
side, and from the Apennines on the other. Who can wonder that
this large and rich and well-watered plain should be filled
with flourishing cities, or that it should have been contended
for so often by successive invaders? Then descending into Italy
proper, we find the complexity of its geography quite in
accordance with its manifold political division. It is not one
simple central ridge of mountains, leaving a broad belt of
level country on either side between it and the sea, nor yet
is it a chain rising immediately from the sea on one side, like
the Andes in South America, and leaving room, therefore, on the
other side for wide plains of table-land, and rivers with a
sufficient length of course to become at last great and
navigable. It is a back-bone thickly set with spines of unequal
length, some of them running out at regular distances parallel
to each other, but others twisted so strangely that they often
run for a long way parallel to the back-bone, or main ridge,
and interlace with one another in a maze almost inextricable.
And, as if to complete the disorder, in those spots where the
spines of the Apennines, being twisted round, run parallel to
the sea and