50 tlbc Garden 



nated by a belt of shrubs. Next you have 

 meadows and the open plain. The arable land 

 is so stiff that it is necessary to go over it nine 

 times with the biggest oxen and the strongest 

 ploughs. The meadows are bright with flowers, 

 and produce trefoil and other kinds of herbage 

 as fine and tender as if it were but just sprung 

 up, for all the soil is refreshed by never failing 

 streams. But though there is plenty of water, 

 there are no marshes ; for the ground being on 

 a slope, whatever water it receives without 

 absorbing runs off into the Tiber. This river, 

 which winds through the middle of the mead- 

 ows, is navigable only in the winter and spring, 

 at which seasons it transports the produce of 

 the land to Rome : but in summer it sinks 

 below its banks, leaving the name of a great 

 river to an almost empty channel ; towards the 

 autumn, however, it begins again to renew its 

 claim to that title. You would be charmed by 

 taking a view of this country from the top of 

 one of our neighboring mountains, and would 

 fancy that not a real, but some imaginary land- 

 scape, painted by the most exquisite pencil, lay 

 before you, such an harmonious variety of 

 beautiful objects meets the eye, whichever way 

 it turns. My house, although at the foot of a 

 hill, commands as good a view as if it stood on 

 its brow, yet you approach by so gentle and 



