The Harrison times. (Harrison, Boone Co., Ark) 1876-1938, 1904-03-12
To the Members of the Harrison

o the MeillDefS ol the ldlilsoi
Book Club;
DEAR MADAMs:
There was a Hare "a. ]. c. who
took some walks in Rome and used
his pen to tell of the wonderful old
ruins, and the foot prints left by the
ancient Romans. But you must not
expect so much from Martha's walk
in Rome, since | have not the long
ears of a hare nor the magic general
~ accorded the rabbits foot but
/ can cover more ground when it
comes to feet and have a good
gait; indeed we could not get home
till Xmas if we loitered by the way,
and explored all the crooks and re-
cesses of the ruins,
But to begin at the beginning.
We came from Naples by way of
modern steam cars, crossing the
Campagna on a bright afternoon,
and noting with pleasure the beau.
ty of the country,-in effect a rolling
prairie without fences and in cult
walton equal to agarden. There does
not seem to be much change in their
manner of farming-for farming i'm
PIGMENTS, except the spade and
versfew little slim plows, seem to
be unknown. They spade up the
ground in groups, sometimes the
women, with their dresses, forming
part of the group, and once we felt
sure we saw dear old Cincinnatus
with his little plow drawn by two
white oxen. How active our mag
nations are under the warm skies of
Italy!
We saw several threshing floors
on the bare ground, reminding us of
Biblical times. But here is some
thing more real and interesting, and
we decide It's the remnants of the
old acqueduct and that we are near
ing the Eternal City, and at the risk
of having our heads taken off, we
poke them out of the car window
and see-Rome. We are soon in the
big Union station, full of life and
people, one half of which are intent
on getting themselves and baggage
through the custom house, and the
other half intent and insistent about
helping them. We were jostled
about and finally saw a man with
the U. S. A. alphabet on his hat
which spelled Cook & Son." We
were delighted with his broken Eng
lish which enabled us to pass
through intelligently, and we were
soon out in a nice wide street open
ing into piazza, pronounced pi-at-
sa, where we found modern street
cars and carriages by the dozens,
with drivers anxious to take us any
place for 20 cents.
Your first impression is one of sur
prise on seeing before you all the evil
dences of a modern city, and you are
lost in admiration of a lovely foun-
tain and park surrounded on one
side by a semicircle of handsome
stone buildings. We first drove
about to try and locate the seven
hills, and found they were not all so
easily defined at this date. But as
we suddenly came to the end OF
crooked street we beheld the ruins of
the Forum below us, while a little
to the right we recognized the Coli
scum in quite a low place, as you
know it was built where's Nero's
lake used to be. Across the Forum
we beheld Palatine Hill with perpen-
dicular stone walls on two sides
near 200 feet high. On ascending
the hill we found a mass of ruins
without any modern work to mar
it's most interesting condition. But
we did not stop then to en- JOY the
many tempting sights, content
ing ourselves with the magnificent
view of the city and the surrounding
country. From the side opposite
the Forum we looked across the low
land which used to be the Circus
Maximus, (but now occupied with a
gas mandatory beyond which we
saw the Aventine Hill on the lower
slope of which we had good view
of the well preserved ruins of the
Caracalla Baths on the Appian Way,
that road by which so many dis
tinguished pilgrims have entered the
capital Of the Catholic world:
Monks, who came hither to study;
saints, who thirsted to worship at
the shrine of their predecessors;
priests and bishops from distant
lands; kings and emperors to ask
CORONA ion If the hands Of tbs ,.e;er,,-