246 Travels in Italy 



crucifix. I have no opinion of Venetian police, from the villainous 

 roads tlirough all their territory; they consist everywhere o^ 

 great stones, broken pavements, or mud. The country is not 

 near so rich as the Milanese, but all thickly enclosed with hedges, 

 full of mulberries; and encumbered, to use Mr. Symonds's just 

 expression, with pollards for training vines. Reach Desenzano 

 in the dark. What my religious companion did with herself, I 

 know not ! I supped alone, thanking God she had not the eyes of 

 the Bergamasque fair. In the night, I thought, the noise of 

 water was different from that of a stream, and opening the 

 windows in the morning, found it the waves of a fine lake. The 

 Lago di Gnarda was out of my recollection. — 15 miles. 



2ist. Coast the lake, with good views of it for several miles. 

 From Brescia to Verona, but especially to Desenzano, I believe 

 there are fifty crosses by the side of the road for deaths. When 

 a person is murdered, they set up a cross for the good of his soul. 

 They had better institute a police for that of his body. What a 

 scandal to a government are such proofs of their negligence! 

 Yet that of Venice is called a wise one. — Impassable roads, towns 

 unlighted, and a full harvest of assassinations; with men count- 

 ing their beads, and women crossing themselves, are the chief 

 signs of wisdom I have yet seen. Arrive at Verona in time to 

 deliver a letter to Signore Cagniola, astronomer and secretary of 

 the agrarian society: this must be a pretty institution, a society 

 of farmers, with an astronomer for their secretary. He intro- 

 duced me at the coffee-house of the Piazza to some lovers of 

 agriculture ; and made an appointment with the president of the 

 society for to-morrow. — 25 miles. 



22nd. Ill luck : the president is obliged to go into the country, 

 and he thinks me, I suppose, like Italian theorists, tied to a 

 town. Signore Cagniola directed his servant to show me to the 

 house of Signore Michael Angelo Locatelli, to whom he had 

 named the object of my journey last night. I found this gentle- 

 man, who is engaged in commerce, but who has two farms in his 

 hands, ready to converse with me on the subject of my inquiries; 

 of Signore Cagniola, I saw or heard no more. I felt myself un- 

 comfortable at Verona till I had seen the amphitheatre, which 

 is in truth a noble remain of antiquity, solid and magnificent 

 enough yet to last perhaps some thousands of years; that of 

 Nismes, cluttered up with houses, must not be named with this. 

 As I stood on the verge of this noble building, I could not but 

 contemplate in idea the innumerable crowds of people who 

 had been spectators of the scenes exhibited in it: the reflexion 



