The St. Charles herald. [volume] (Hahnville, La.) 1873-1993, 1885-01-17

where strangers are rarity, where the
tnnkeepers only speak their own beauti-
full language, where Mr.. Cook has not
yet led swarms Of personally conducted
tourists. Pre-eminent among these
rare exceptions is the Tuscan Maremrna,
the long strip Of coast which stretches
from Pisa toward Rome. wedged be-
tween the western slopes Of the Apen-
mines and the Mediterranean. Tens of
thousands OF travellers annually rush
through 1t, unconscious that they are
passing within few miles of the his
tor1e city of Volterra; that Elba, Bona
pane first island prison, is but ninety
minutes steam from the mainland and
thai the railroad is carrying them with
in stones throw of the 'ssea girt
Pooulonia," once the emporium of
Efuscan commerce. Dread of malaria
has for centuries contributed to the neg
let OF this part of the peninsula. Since
tie days OF Dante ''desfecemi Marem-
ma" has expressed the popular estima-
ton of its climate. But the prejudice
Is exaggerated; though fever undoubt-
eddy exists, it is not prevalent during
the spring, and the efforts of the Italian
Government in draining and retaining
its waste and marshy lands are slowly
but steadily dispelling the miasma.
IL Is difficult to imagine anything
more quaint than a three or four hours
drive across the Maremma. You sit in
an extraordinary vehicle, half dog-cart,
half jaunting-car, with no bottom but a
broken network of dirty strings, and
shafts OF portentous length, to which
Is securely lashed the most narrow
chested, weediest horse imaginable.
The driver, with his flowing beard, fur
cap and raiment of many colors, dis
cusses the Egyptian question in Italian
so pure and graceful that his Anglopho-
Dist views are of necessity forgiven. The
roads are broad and well kept, planted
on either side with poplars or Australian
gum-trees; and peasants in classically
shaped carts, drawn by milk-white
oxen, greet the stranger with pleasant
friendliness. Some of these country
folks seem strong and healthy; others
are lean, yellow, ricketty; the former
are the fortunate individuals who can
afford to sleep in the hills, and thus es-
cape the malaria at night; the latter are
compelled by poverty to occupy the
dreary, fortress-like farm houses, the
only sign of human habitation in the
fertile but fever-laden plain. In an
hour or two we pass into a belt of
country still unreclaimed, though
skirted by the railway line to Rome.
There are swamps in all directions,
great thickets where wild boars and deer
still abound, and in the distance a
melancholy sea-beach--a dreary, soil
tary waste of sand. Above it rises
headland. exquisitely wooded; on its
summit stands a castle with q few
squalid cottages clustering round its
walls. That castle and some hundreds
OF yards OF cyclopean masonry alone
mark the site of the ancient CITY of
Popuionia, under the Etruscans thirty
ing seaport, with quays and wharves
and crowds of shipping. The town
must have been of great extent, for
wherever Count Desiderj. the proprie-
tor of the castle and the surrounding
country, has excavated within two or
three miles of his keep, tombs, masonry
and coins in profusion have been found
buried far below the roots of the trees
which now cover this part of the Ma
remma.
In Elba there is little to see, for all
Napoleonic relics have been removed to
iron ore, the staples of the island, are in
teresting TO the general traveller. When
the metal trade is brisk, Elba thrives,
for its hills are without exaggeration one
mass OF iron; but in seasons of depres-
sion 1t lives almost entirely on the
gigantic penal establishments main
tanned here by the Italian Government.
AS we were standing near the entrance
to one of the prisons felon who had
temporarily escaped was ANONYMOUSLY
brought in, tied up in cart. AS
he was hustled back into Jail,
the sentry, an Italian lines
man, gravely welcomed him with the
quotation: "Lasciate ogni speranza
vol che qui entrate' surely delicious
piece of local coloring unattainable any,
where but in Italy. No glimpse of the
Maremma would be complete without
a visit to Volterra. Never was epithet
better deserved than that of "lordly,"
applied to it by Macaulay Built on
the summit of a steep, fiat-topped hill,
Volterra towers majestically over the
country for many miles around. Along
the crest of the plateau may here and
there be traced the ancient line of
Notifications by fragments of massive
stonework, half hidden in the ripening
corn. The principal entrance to the
town is through an Etruscan gateway,
also built of vast masses of rough-hewn
stone; black with age, it is computed
that thirty centuries have passed since
first the grim heads of the tutelary
deities, which even now adorn it, looked
forth upon the glorious panorama of
mountain, plain, and distant sea stretch
ing far beneath them. Numberless
topbs have been discovered within the
circuit Of the ancient walls, and their
'contents removed to the handsome local
museum. Two, however, have been
left undisturbed in the condition in
which they were discovered. These
tombs are caverns of the size of small |
modern rooms; one contains a single |
chamber, the other series of three or
bur. Around the walls and on the !
ground stand rows of cinerary urns and
sarcophagi, the repositories of the dust |
many generations. To trace the
radual development of art, to mark
re exquisite beauty and pathos of the
as-reliefs on the sarcophagi, is alono
worth "a pilorimaoe to Volterra