Norwich bulletin., 1921-06-13
IN THE DAYS NEWS
Italy.

Reclamation projects are under way for making the famous Roman Cam pagna what it was before the fall of the Roman Empire thus restoring 10 Italy a region which once was dot ted with busy villages and luxuriant fruit trees, newspaper dispatches state.
 This now dreary plain, of which only one tenth has for hundreds Of generations been turned by the blow share, is the burial place of scores of Etruscan cities. Its desolate and fever laden atmosphere has for centuries given to Rome a splendid isolation and filled the sleep of the summer travel CT to the city with malaria-haunted dreams, says bulletin from Wash ington, D. C., headquarters of the Nat ional Geographic Society.
 The Campagna di Roma, that dis trict of Italy which so nearly corres- ponds to ancient Latium, lies along the west coast of the country from Ci- vitavechio to Astura and the Pontine Marshes as far inland as the Alban and Sabine Hills, where Horace wish ed for a little farm that he might en- joy the golden mean. of life. Rome lies near its centre. In Horaces day if was cultivated and dotted with towns , ducts, once a mark for the Campagna
 pride, solennly speak of their past | grandeur.
 Tt is almost improper to speak of the region as a plain. It is rather a volcanic sea extending on both sides of the Fiber. Once the Mediterranean probably pushed far up the valley and
 most of the area resembled an archi- | pelago. Then evidently there was a
 great volcano Vpheaval, the earth rose
 near the coast the sea was pushed back
 the streams from the Alban noun ! tains found no outlet, and the marshy l stagnant waters have swallowed cities ! leaving no trace of them-merely their
 memories and their names. Tufa and | ashes partly covered up with water, | creating a marsh which became the 1 home of the elephant and the stag. | Outside of Rome this expanse has lain for centuries. breathing it's fever laden breath upon the city. It has seemed almost to await to swallow l the Eternal City itself. Now Italy,
 realizing that this vast area can be
 made to yield excellent fruits and grain
 and thus enable her to hold her place
 as the. commercial mistress of the Med
 iterranean, has drained and irrigated
 the whole of the Campagna will be un-
 parts of it, and 1t is hoped that soon
 der cultivation.
 Tn some places the undeveloped area
 consists of unproductive grazing lands
 to which in the autumn herdsmen drive their cattle and horses down from the : mountains to graze; in others there are
 shaggy grassgrown ditches and deer ! holes made searches for catacombs
 the big expanse of loneliness, the homei ] Occasionally a farmhouse will breal
 which are often enough picturesQul little nests. are wretched and dirty , Malaria has chilled the bones of th, } inha bitants.
 The region is moderately cold fl winter and there is occasional snow storms. In winter. In the summer thi oppressive heat parches the soil ii spots and produces several inches O ! dust. The careful guidebook warns thu traveller that evenings the Campagni ' are not in keeping with the day. Tn sun seems to drop suddenly out of thu ; sky. and a clammy penetrating col,
 wells up.
 ? Perhaps it is the atmosphere of tn 7 surrounding Campagna which give 2 Rome part of its lure. Its faint whis ! pers, its strange smells, and the mis . that rises over it speak of the relent l, lessness with which it has swallows , everything that ventured to live in il | It is probable. however. that as IL ' ally reclaims this desolate and deserte s region to its former state of prosperit T the old saying applied to the Campag T na You get rich in six months bu k you die in fOur.-wili pass into histor.