And now we have left the enchanting south; myrtle-hedges, palm-trees,
orange-groves, bright Mediterranean, all adieu! How, under other
circumstances, should I regret you, with what reluctance should I
leave you, thus half explored, half enjoyed! but now other thoughts
engross me, the hard struggle to overcome myself, or at least to
appear the thing I am not.----
* * * * *
Man has done what he can to deform this lovely region. The most
horrible places we have yet met with are Itri and Fondi, which look
like recesses of depravity and dirt, and the houses more like the dens
and kennels of wild beasts, than the habitations of civilized human
beings. In fact, the populace of these towns consists chiefly of the
families of the briganti. The women we saw here were bold coarse
Amazons; and the few men who appeared had a slouching gait, and looked
at us from under their eyebrows with an expression at once cunning and
fierce. We met many begging friars--horrible specimens of their
species: altogether I never beheld such a desperate set of canaille as
appear to have congregated in these two wretched towns.
At Mola I remarked several beautiful women. Their head-dress is
singularly graceful: the hair being plaited round the back of the
head, and there fastened with two silver pins, much in the manner of
some of the ancient statues. The costume of the peasantry, there, and
all the way to Rome, is very striking and picturesque. I remember one
woman whom I saw standing at her door spinning with her distaff: her
long black hair, floating down from its confinement, was spread over
her shoulders; not hanging in a dishevelled and slovenly style, but in
the most rich and luxuriant tresses. Her attitude as she stood
suspending her work to gaze at _me_, as I gazed at her with open
admiration, was graceful and dignified; and her form and features
would have been a model for a Juno or a Minerva.[O]