iery waves. The orange
deepens into dying red. The green divides into daffodil and beryl. The
blue above grows fainter, and the moon and stars shine stronger.

Through these celestial changes we glide into a landscape fit for
Francia and the early Umbrian painters. Low hills to right and left;
suavely modelled heights in the far distance; a very quiet width of
plain, with slender trees ascending into the pellucid air; and down in
the mystery of the middle distance a glimpse of heaven-reflecting water.
The magic of the moon and stars lends enchantment to this scene. No
painting could convey their influences. Sometimes both luminaries
tremble, all dispersed and broken, on the swirling river. Sometimes they
sleep above the calm cool reaches of a rush-grown mere. And here and
there a ruined turret, with a broken window and a tuft of shrubs upon
the rifted battlement, gives value to the fading pallor of the West. The
last phase in the sunset is a change to blue-grey monochrome, faintly
silvered with starlight; hills, Tiber, fields and woods all floating in
aerial twilight. There is no definition of outline now. The daffodil of
the horizon has faded into scarcely perceptible pale greenish yellow.

We have passed Stimigliano. Through the mystery of darkness we hurry
past the bridges of Augustus and the lights of Narni.

THE CASCADES OF TERNI.

The Velino is a river of considerable volume which rises in the highest
region of the Abruzzi, threads the upland valley of Rieti, and
precipitates itself by an artificial channel over cliffs about seven
hundred feet in height into the Nera. The water is densely charged with
particles of lime. This calcareous matter not only tends continually to
choke its bed, but clothes the precipices over which the torrent
thunders with fantastic drapery of stalactite; and, carried on the wind
in foam, incrusts the forests that surround the falls with fine white
dust. These famous cascades are undoubtedly the most sublime and
beautiful which Europe boasts; and their situation is worthy of so great
a natural wonder. We reach them through a noble mid-Italian landscape,
where the mountain forms are austere and boldly modelled, but the
vegetation, both wild and cultivated, has something of the South-Italian
richness. The hill-sides are a labyrinth of box and arbutus, with
coronilla in golden bloom. The turf is starred with cyclamens and
orchises. Climbing the staircase paths beside the falls in morni