extends from Mount Soracte (S. Oreste) southwards to the Alban Hills,
and from the Apennines westwards to the sea. It is watered by the
Tiber and numerous smaller streams; but there are no marshes except
the salt ones by the sea. The soil is mostly composed of tufa rock,
covered with a few feet of soil--decayed vegetable matter. This causes
the malaria: for the first rains, after the heat of summer, which has
burned up all the vegetation, pass through the soil and rest upon the
rock; then the hot sun after the rains draws up the noxious gas, which
being dispersed through the air, if inhaled during sleep, or upon an
empty stomach, produces fever.
If the soil, which for many ages has been allowed to lie fallow, were
properly irrigated and cultivated, all this could be obviated. In the
last few years more has been brought under the plough; and if the
government would only plant trees by the road-sides and in the waste
places, the Campagna would soon become as healthy as in the days of
Pliny, who thus describes it:--"Such is the happy and beautiful
amenity of the Campagna that it seems to be the work of a rejoicing
nature. For, truly, so it appears in the vital and perennial salubrity
of its atmosphere; its fertile plains, sunny hills, healthy woods,
thick groves, rich varieties of trees, breezy mountains, fertility in
fruits, vines, and olives; its noble flocks of sheep and abundant
herds of cattle; its numerous lakes, and wealth of rivers and streams
pouring in upon its many seaports, in whose lap the commerce of the
world lies, and which run largely into the sea, as it were to help
mortals."
The surface is by no means flat, but undulating, like the rolling
prairies of America, and presents many points of interest and study to
the artist and the rambler.
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