CATARACTS, AND INUNDATIONS. 241 



lous descriptions that have been given of enchanted groves and 

 islands. The walks through this cedar plantation lead, by a de- 

 scent, to a summer-liouse near the lake. The shores of both islands 

 are |et round with painted flower- pots; and when any foreign prince 

 comes in the night, or makes any stay here, both islands are illumi- 

 nated with lights of all colours, which exhibit a very glorious spec- 

 tacle. 



The territory of PERUGIA contains a pretty large lake, anciently 

 called Thrasimene, but at present the lake of Perugia, in vphich 

 are three islands. Between this lake and a high mountain near 

 Corlona, in the dominions of Florence, is a long valley with only 

 one narrow entrance, where Hanuibal defeated Flaminius the Ro- 

 man general. 



THE CAPE OF BOLSENA, a small town most delightfully situ, 

 ated in the patrimony of St. Peter, is thirty-five Italian miles in cir- 

 cuit. The mountains which environ it are covered with oaks, and 

 form expansive and august amphitheatres. Here is said to have 

 been -wrought by the host (the elements of the eucharist) .when car- 

 lied in procession, the miracle which gave occasion to the insti- 

 tution of the festival of Corpus Christi. Near this place are seen, 

 on an eminence, the walls of tliQ Etrurian city Volsinium, in ruins. 



Four Italian miles from Tivoli, a town of great antiquity in the 

 Campagna, and seventeen miles uorth.cast of Rome, lies the lake 

 of SOLFATARA, formerly called Lacus Albutus, in which are 

 sixteen floating islands. Dr. Moore asserts tiiat these islands are 

 nothing else than bundles of bulrushes springing from a thin soil, 

 formed by dust and sand blown from the adjacent ground, and 

 glewed together by the bitumen which swims on the surface of this 

 lake, and the sulphur with which its waters are impregnated. Some 

 of these islands are twelve or fifteen yards in length ; the soil is suf- 

 ficiently strong to bear five or six people, who, by means of a pole, 

 may move to different parts of the lake, as if they were in a boat. 

 This lake empties itself by a whitish muddy stream into the Tive- 

 rone, the ancient Anio ; a vapour of a sulphureous smell arising 

 from it as it flows. The ground near this rivulet, as also around 

 the waters of the lake, resounds as if it were hollow when a horse 

 gallops over it. The water of the lake has the singular quality of 

 covering every substau.ee which it touches with a hard, calcareous 



VOL. in. B 



