Mark Antony formed the second
Triumvirate, which put an end to what little liberty Rome had left;
but in reality I was thinking of the draught on my back, and the
comforts of a sunny clime. But the time came at length for starting;
and in luxurious cars we finished the night very comfortably, and
rode into Florence at eight in the morning to find, as we had hoped,
on the other side of the Apennines, a sunny sky and balmy air.

As this is strictly a chapter of travel and weather, I may not stop
to say how impressive and beautiful Florence seemed to us; how
bewildering in art treasures, which one sees at a glance in the
streets; or scarcely to hint how lovely were the Boboli Gardens
behind the Pitti Palace, the roses, geraniums etc, in bloom, the
birds singing, and all in a soft, dreamy air. The next day was not
so genial; and we sped on, following our original intention of
seeking the summer in winter. In order to avoid trouble with baggage
and passports in Rome, we determined to book through for Naples,
making the trip in about twenty hours. We started at nine o'clock in
the evening, and I do not recall a more thoroughly uncomfortable
journey. It grew colder as the night wore on, and we went farther
south. Late in the morning we were landed at the station outside of
Rome. There was a general appearance of ruin and desolation. The
wind blew fiercely from the hills, and the snowflakes from the flying
clouds added to the general chilliness. There was no chance to get
even a cup of coffee, and we waited an hour in the cold car. If I
had not been so half frozen, the consciousness that I was actually on
the outskirts of the Eternal City, that I saw the Campagna and the
aqueducts, that yonder were the Alban Hills, and that every foot of
soil on which I looked was saturated with history, would have excited
me. The sun came out here and there as we went south, and we caught
some exquisite lights on the near and snowy hills; and there was
something almost homelike in the miles and miles of olive orchards,
that recalled the apple-trees, but for their shining silvered leaves.
And yet nothing could be more desolate than the brown marshy ground,
the brown hillocks, with now and then a shabby stone hut or a bit of
ruin, and the flocks of sheep shivering near their corrals, and their
shepherd, clad in sheepskin, as his ancestor was in the time of
Romulus, leaning on his staff, with his back to the wind. Now and
then a white town perc