64- SPRINGS, RIVERS, CANALS, LAKES 7 



protection of a god of the same denomination, whose temple stood 

 on its banks. According to the testimony of ancient authors, it was 

 subject to extraordinary risings and decreasings. The actual cir- 

 cumference is forty. seven miles ; the breadth in the largest part, 

 ten, in the narrowest, four; its deph, twelve feet up >n an average. 

 But all these have varied prodigiously. Two miles up the plain, 

 behind Avezzano, the fragments of boats, shells, and other marks 

 of its ancient extent, have been casually discovered ; and, on the 

 contrary, there are people who remember when it did not flow 

 nearer than within two miles of Avezzano. An immense tract of 

 excellent laud is lost at every increase of its level, and if any means 

 could be devised for draining it, or at least reducing its size, the 

 value of the ground recovered for cultivation would be more than 

 an equivalent for any expense incurred in the works. 



All round this noble piece of water rises a circle of grand moun- 

 tains some of them the highest in Italy, if we except the Alps. The 

 Kocca di Canibio is accounted the most elevated among them ; in 

 summer this country must be a delightful place of abode, for the 

 environs of the lake are well inclosed, and the sides of the hills 

 covered with line woods; its waters abound with fish of various 

 kinds, and thither repair, at stated seasons, innumerable flights of 

 wild fowl. The necessaries of life are good, plentiful, and cheap : 

 scarcely a town but is celebrated for the excellence of some parti- 

 cular species of food. 



\Ve rode along the edge of the lake, which was excessively 

 agitated by the high wind, and resembled a dark stormy sea ; at 

 the distance of a mile and a half from the town we came to the 

 mouth of ihe emissary or opening made by the order of Claudius 

 Ctesar for the discharge of the waters into the Liris*, which runs 



* Dio says, the emperor intended to convey the waters into the Tiber; 

 which could only be by means of the Salto, the Velino, and the Nera, through 

 all which they must have passed before they fell into the Tiber, unless he 

 meant to carry them upon arches over the Liris, and through a double chain of 

 hills to the source of the Teverone. The Salto is too far off, and, I imagine, 

 upon much too high a level. 



Cluvefius asserts, that nobody now knows where the emissary was; and that 

 the works shewn for it are no more than the vestiges of a small canal, where 

 the river Pitonius entered the bowels of the mountains, out of which it did 

 not emerge till it reached tiie valley of Sujbiaco, where the aqueducts began 

 that conveyed it to Rome, by the name of the Aqua Martin, Pliny tells a 



