Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1874-06-06

I IdE GlC AuAAC VI IL
la, Is miles southeast of Rome. The
little stream flowing into the pond is
strongly impregnated with the car
bonate-of lime Ancrustation which is
| fllingup the pond. By this process
in few centuries more the pond
will be completely closed, as hun
dreds of other ponds on the Cam
pagna have been in the same way
before it. Thus the Imagination can
90 back to the time when the Coli
scum and st. Peters were held in
solution in lakelets as
CARBONATE OF LIME!
The ashes and seoiie from the
dead volcanoes, disposed in layers
over the marine deposits, and grad
ually consolidated by water and
pressure, formed in reddish brown,
soft building stone in common use
in Rome, called tufa; while from the
lava flow of the volcanoes is obtained
the hard, dark fiint-like, substance
with which the streets of the 'Eter-
nal City" were in ancient times, and
are now, paved and which stood a
thousand years travel on the Appian
and Flaminian Ways and other
great military highways which radi-
ated from Rome over the Campagna
and Italy.
The Campagne of Rome is thus
seen to be a vast tablet on which the
action of salt water, and the wash
ings of the Apennines, have record
ed their various inScrip tions in CHAR
acter so plain that any intelligent
person may read them rs he runs
How the late and lamented Col
Foster would have enjoyed and ex-
ploration of the singular Campagna,
and what a deeply interesting and
lucid report of what he discovered
he could have written!
Why is the Roman Campagna in
summer
FEVER STRICKEN PLAIN!
l have found no satisfactory answer
to the question, and no writer has
ever explained it in a way that 1 can
fully endorse. And l have not the
ory enough of my own to offer in
lieu of theirs. To the eye, the Ro-
man Campagna should be the health
lest plain in Italy. There is no
stagnant water, no marshes or
swamps thereon. The streams that
issue from its hill-sides are bright,
pure and healthy waters. The un-
dulations make it everywhere self
draining and dry ground. As re-
marked, it exactly resembles the
rolling prairies of Kansas, and sure
ly they are salubrious. The weather
is no drier or hotter between May
and October, on the Roman Cam
pagna, than in Southern Kansas or
Central Illinois, But it is as tree
less, houseless uninhabited, as the
unpeopled districs of the "Far
West" This is strange contrast
to thel other part of Italy, which
swarm with population like a bee
hive, and are planted all over with
trees-n1ulberry, olive, orange, pine,
chestnut, poplar, and other varieties.
Far as the eye can pierce, one sees
only treeless, rolling, ever-chang-
ing plain, covered with short grass |
mixed with wild flowers; but with
no human life, except dark-skinned, |
brigand-looking shepherds and |
herdsmen dressed in cloaks of sheep
skin and calfskin trowsers, hair side !
out, with high, cOnical hat, and ac-
companied by wolfsh dogs, which |
aid their masters in taking care of |
the fiocks and herds. In every direc- |
tion this melancholy scene depresses
the mind of the traveller, and makes
him feel that heis passing through |
A LAND OF GHOSTS
the shades Of the great departed of
ancient Rome. The dead city throws
it solemn shadow over the wide plain
which once teemed with rural life
and bustled with agricultural indus
try. This plain is that world re-
Campagna so inseparaly con-
nected with the early history of
Rome. 1t was once occupied and
owned by little commonwealths
which cost the Roman tribes centu-
ries to overcome and conquer. Who
has not read and sympathized with
the gallant struggle of the Veil,
whose city, not II miles from Rome,
stood a siege of ten years before
yielding, and whose ruins are dis
tinctly visible to this day?
But at last, when Rome was weak
ened by licentiousness and Commun-
ism, the barbarian Goths strobe
over this Campagna with fire and
sword; and, after them, the Huns,
and Lombards, and Saracens. Ey-
cry habitation, was destroyed, every
tree hewn down, and the inhabitants
were murdered or dispersed. The
Campagna never again was popula-
ted. 1t grew over with grass and
weeds, and fell into the hands of
few proprietors, who for many cen
turies, have devoted the, land to
pasturage. A few years ago, the
number Of proprietors of the Cam
pagna was l73 of whom GA were
chureh-corporations such as convent
estates for the support of monks,
nuns and friars. The ecclesiastics
had absorbed more than half of the
whole Campagna, and the residue
belonged to mobiles who had descend
ed from the relatives of Popes and
Cardinals.
The owners do not manage those
enormous estates themselves, but
rent them to a body of middlemen,
about fifty in number, called
"MERCANTI DI CAAIPAGNA,"
who reside in Rome, and were in
by the Papal Govern
ment. They have all grown very
rich-some of them being among
the wealthiest men in Rome. They
own the vast fiocks and herds, and
hire the shepherds and their yellow
dogs. They employ overseers, who
ride about on horseback, under un-
brellas, with pistols in their BELTS
exactly like the slave-drivers on
Southern plantations, in the days OF
overlook the herds