the acclivity. We crawled up safely
and slowly between orchards of olive trees, which will grow wherever
a goat can set its foot: beneath us the great fertile vale of Umbria
spread like a lake, the encircling mountains, which had looked like
a close chain from below, unlinking themselves to reveal gorges and
glimpses of other valleys. Thus by successive zigzags we mounted
the broad turnpike-road, now directly under the fortifications, now
farther off, until we saw them close above us, with the old citadel
and the new palace. And now surely the worst had come, but the carnage
turned a sharp corner, showing two more zigzags, forming a long acute
angle which carried us smoothly to the rocky plateau on which the city
stands, and we bowled in through the old gate-way at a round trot,
with the usual cracking of whips and rattling and jingling of harness
which announces the arrival of travelers at minor places on the
Continent.

We were not comfortable at Perugia--and let no one think to be so
until there is a new hotel on a new principle--but it is a place where
one can afford to forego creature comforts. Of all the towns on the
Tiber, so rich in heirlooms of antiquity and art, none can boast such
various wealth as this. The moment one leaves the centre of the town,
which is built on a table of rock, the narrow streets plunge down on
every side like dangerous broken flights of stairs: they disappear
under deep cavernous arches, so that if you are below they seem to
lead straight up through the darkness to the soft blue heaven, while
from above they seem to go straight down into deep cellars, but
cellars full of slanting sunshine. And whether you look up or down,
there is always a picture in the dark frame against the bright
background--a woman in a scarlet kerchief with a water-vessel of
antique form, or a ragged brown boy leading a ragged brown donkey, or
a soldier in gay uniform striking a light for his pipe. As soon as
you leave the live part of the town, with the few little _caffes_ and
shops, and the esplanades whence the thrice-lovely landscape unfolds
beneath your gaze, you wander among quiet little paved _piazzas_ with
a bit of daisied grass in their midst, surrounded by great silent
buildings, whence through some opening you descry a street which is a
ravine, and the opposite cliff rising high above you piled close with
gray houses overhung with shrubs and creepers, and little gardens in
their crevices like weeds b