652 



ITALY. 



sledge, guided Oy h mountaineer. In this way, two leagues were passed over in a few 

 minutes 



15. Diseases, Some of the most fertile parts of Italy are depopuJaied by the fevers, that 

 arise from the malaria. The most extensive maremma^ or marshy, low land, extends from the 

 vicinity of Leghorn to Terracina, and few of the inhabitants remain in it during the summer. 

 The Pontine Marshes, near Terracina, have been noted from remote antiquity for their pesti- 

 ential vapors. It is fatal for the traveler to sleep on them for a night in summer ; and it is 

 dangerous for him to fall asleep in his carriage by day. With every precaution, indeed, and 

 the greatest speed, it is not possible to pass them in summer without peril. The wasted 

 inhabitants of these pestilential districts have the marks of disease imprinted deeply upon them. 

 They are thin, livid, and unwilling to move. They have hard, protuberant waists, and sunken 

 eyes. In some places, they pass their summer nights in the mountains, and a few come 

 down by day to discharge their duties at the post houses. An ascent of ten minutes' 

 walk up the mountains, places them in an air of perfect purity. The malaria seldom rises more 

 than 200 feet. Where it prevails, the vegetation is often enchanting, all flowers open their 

 petals, and every noble tree extends its branches. Yet the agent that produces all this veget- 

 able beauty is fatal to human life, though, like the sword of Harmodius, the danger is concealed 

 in flowers. Rome is more exposed to the ravages of the malaria than any other city. It is 

 besieged, and the salubrious spots are annually diminishing in extent ; 4,000 people die of fe- 

 vers annually in the Roman hospitals, and 60,000 perish in Italy by the same scourge. Ostia, 

 with buildings to contain many thousand people, has but 12 men remaining. 



Blindness and opthalmia are common in the south of Italy, and, in the mountains of the 

 north, scrofula and goitres. A goitre is an enlargement of the glands of the neck, which some- 

 times swell to such an extent, that they overhang the breast. In some districts among the 

 Alps, few people escape an enlargement of the glands. A recent traveler in the Alps says, 

 " In this route, we remarked a great many goitrous swellings ; some hanging hideously down 

 like the bag of a pelican, and others just beginning to swell, like an alderman's double chin. 

 I never beheld one without raising a hand to my own neck, to see if all was right ; and a pretty 

 woman in these regions runs to a glass in the morning, (though our ladies do this,) to see if 

 that foe to beauty has not appeared during the night. In some parts, however, it is said that 

 goitres are so common, that it is an unfortunate singularity to be without one, and a young 

 woman who is so unlucky can have few admirers." The goitres are not dangerous, nor, unless 

 when very large, troublesome. Cretins, a peculiar kind of idiots, are generally found in the 

 same districts with goitres. 



16. Character, JManners, and Customs. Italy has a common language, literature, and re- 

 ligion, but no common national character. There is no bond of union, no feeling of interest, 

 or affinity, that "binds one state of Italy to another. On the contrary, there is a reciprocal an- 

 tipathy, a sort of moral centrifugal force, which has dropped the violence, though it has lost 

 none of the intensity, of the feudal times. It is kept alive by sarcasms and proverbial sayings, 

 and the inhabitants of neighboring towns have some general name of insult for each other. 

 These local divisions produce great acrimony, and they are fortified by local customs, dialects, 

 and dress. This disunion of those who should be united, sufficiently accounts for the facilityj 

 with which the best part of Italy has admitted the domination of foreign masters. 



The revolutionary changes of 30 years, have, however, given an impulse to the public mind, 

 and they have raised the Italian character, especially in the north. In this part, there is an 

 almost infinite moral distance between father and son ; there is the difference of centuries, 

 between those who formed their character before the residence of the French, and those who 

 formed it since. Such are the local character and divisions, that, to describe Italy truly, it 

 should be described in detail for there are many traits of character, that do not pervade all 

 the separate states. The enmity of petty states, is greater than that of empires ; for the 

 jealousy partakes somewhat of personal dislike. In Italy, the minor states are ridiculed by 

 the larger ones, and by each other ; it is an old jest of Punch, upon the stage, in ridicule of 

 a small territory, to light a candle at both ends, when a petty duke orders him beyond his fron- 

 tiers, on pain of death, before the candle should be consumed. 



The modern Italians are the successors, rather than the descendants, of the Romans. Italy, 

 says her poet, was cursed with the fatal gift of beauty, and she has ever been the spoil of the 

 strongest. Clouds of barbarians have overrun her plains, and the original nations became so 

 blended with foreigners, that the lineage is no longer to be traced. Some few families; mdeed. 



