208 JOHN EVELYN 



swiftly, that one can hardly escape wetting. This 

 leads to the Citroniere, where is a noble conserve of 

 all those rarities ; and at the end of it is the Arch of 

 Constantine, painted on a wall in oyle, as large as the 

 real one at Rome, so well don that even a man skill'd 

 in painting may mistake it for stone and sculpture. 

 The skie and hills which seeme to be betweene the 

 arches are so naturall that swallows and other birds, 

 thinking to fly through, have dashed themselves against 

 the wall. At the further part of this walke is that 

 plentiful though artificial cascade which rolls down a 

 very steepe declivity, and over the marble steps and 

 bassins, with an astonishing noyse and fury ; each 

 basin hath a jetto in it, flowing like sheetes of trans- 

 parent glasse, especially that which rises over the greate 

 shell of lead, from whence it glides silently downe a 

 channell thro' the middle of a spacious gravel walke 

 terminating in a grotto. Here are also fountaines that 

 cast water to a great height, and large ponds, 2 of 

 which have islands for harbour of fowles, of which 

 there is store. One of these islands has a receptacle 

 for them built of vast pieces of rock, neere 50 feet 

 high, growne over with mosse, ivy, &c. shaded at a 

 competent distance with tall trees, in this the fowles 

 lay eggs and breede. We then saw a large and very 



