pe,[56] divides the extent of Italy into three great districts, of
mountain, plain, and marsh. The region of marsh lies between the
Apennines and the Mediterranean; and here, I confess, he finds fault
with the degree of diligence in reclaiming it exerted by its present
possessors. He notices with dissatisfaction that the marshes of Volterra
are still as pestilential as in the days of Hannibal; moreover, that the
Campagna of Rome, once inhabited by numerous tribes, is now an almost
uninhabited desert, and that the Pontine Marshes, formerly the abode of
thirty nations, are now a pestilential swamp. I will not stop to remind
you that the irruptions of barbarians like the Turks, have been the
causes of this desolation, that the existing governments had nothing to
do with it, and that, on the contrary, they have made various efforts to
overcome the evil. For argument's sake, I will allow them to be a
reproach to the government, for they will be found to be only exceptions
to the general state of the country. Even as regards this low tract, he
speaks of one portion of it, the plain of the Clitumnus, as being rich,
as in ancient days, in herds and flocks; and he enlarges upon the
Campagna of Naples as "still the scene of industry, elegance, and
agricultural riches. There," he says, "still, as in ancient times, an
admirable cultivation brings to perfection the choicest gifts of
nature. Magnificent crops of wheat and maize cover the rich and level
expanse; rows of elms or willows shelter their harvests from the too
scorching rays of the sun; and luxuriant vines, clustering to the very
tops of the trees, are trained in festoons from one summit to the other.
On its hills the orange, the vine, and the fig-tree flourish in
luxuriant beauty; the air is rendered fragrant by their ceaseless
perfume; and the prodigy is here exhibited of the fruit and the flower
appearing at the same time on the same stem."

So much for that portion of Italy which owes least to the labours of the
husbandman: the second portion is the plain of Lombardy, which stretches
three hundred miles in length by one hundred and twenty in breadth, and
which, he says, "beyond question is the richest and the most fertile in
Europe." This great plain is so level, that you may travel two hundred
miles in a straight line, without coming to a natural eminence ten feet
high; and it is watered by numerous rivers, the Ticino, the Adda, the
Adige, and others, which fall into th