CATARACTS, AND INUNDATIONS. 55 



The Lake Vadimon. 



PLINY to GALLUS. 



THOSE works of art or nature, which are usually the motives of 

 our travels, are often overlooked and neglected, if they happen to 

 lie within our reach ; whether it be that we are naturally less inqui- 

 sitive concerning those things which are near us, while our curiosity 

 is excited by remote objects; or because ihe easiness of gratifying 

 a desire is always sure to damp it ; or, perhaps, that we defer, from 

 time to time, viewing what we know we have an opportunity of see- 

 ing whenever we please. Be the reason what it may, it is certain 

 there are several rarities in and near Rome, which we not only have 

 never seen, but have never so much as heard of; and yet, if they 

 had been the production of Greece, or Egypt, or Asia, or any other 

 country which we admire as fruitful in wonders, they would, long 

 since, have been the subjects both of our reading, conversation, arid 

 inspection. For myself, at least, I confess I have lately been enter, 

 tained with a sight of one of these our indigenous singularities, to 

 which I was an entire stranger before. My wife's grandfather de- 

 sired I would look upon his estate near Ameria *. As I was walk- 

 ing over his grounds, I was shown a lake that lies below them, called 

 Vadimon f, which I was informed had several very extraordinary 

 qualities attending it. This raised my curiosity to take a nearer 

 view. Its form is exactly circular ; there is not the least obliquity 

 or winding ; but all is regular and even, as if it had been hollowed 

 and cut out by the hand of art. The water is of a clear sky blue, 

 though with somewhat of a greenish cast ; it seems, by its taste and 

 smell, impregnated with sulphur, and is deemed of great erhcacv in 

 all fractures of the limbs, which it is supposed to consolidate. Not- 

 withstanding it is but of a moderate extent, yet the winds have a 

 great effect upon it, frequently throwing it into violent commotions. 

 No vessels are suffered to sail here, as its waters are held sacred J, 

 but several floating islands swim about in it, covered with reeds 



* Now called Amelia, an episcopal city in Ombria. 



i Now called Lago di Bai-sanello. 



$ See note p. 53. 



$ The credit of this account does not rest entirely upon our author: Pliny 

 the elder mentions these floating islands, (1.2 95.) and so do.-s Seneca, who 

 accounts for them upon piiilosophical principles. (Q. N. 1.3,25.) Various says, 

 that iu Honduras, a province in America, there is a lake iu which are several 



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