From Rome to Naples you pass through Frascati, Velletri, Frosinone, Pontecorvo, and Capua, once the winter quarters of Hannibal and his army. Shortly after leaving Rome you cross the Pontine Marshes, extending south about thirty or forty miles, which infect the air to such a degree in summer as to resemble a plague. Although apparently fertile, it is almost depopulated, and with few habitations. The malaria arises from stagnant swamps, and their few inhabitants are wretched objects, emaciated and pot-bellied, generally dying prematurely from dropsy. Few efforts in modern times had been made to drain them, the resources of the Pontifical Government being absorbed in unnecessary churches and processions. A large body of banditti, generally prisoners, escaped from the galleys, and then, supposed to number about 400, infested the neighbouring mountains; and several gibbets were seen at intervals on the road, at places where murders had been committed by them. A few days previously they entered the town of Tivoli and carried off two of the principal inhabitants, for whose ransom they demanded 3,000 crowns, and the Government seemed quite unable to suppress those disorders. The situation of Naples, with its magnificent Bay, is much to be admired. The Royal “Museum Borbonico” contains objects of the highest interest—a vast number of articles of ancient glass, mostly Egyptian, Sicilian Vases, &c.; and the collections from Herculaneum and Pompeii, consisting of ancient instruments, utensils, female ornaments, and household articles found in those cities, and recently removed here from the museum at Portici, are quite unique. The Grottos of Posillipo and del Cane are close to Naples. In the latter, a noxious gas is so powerful that nothing living can exist within it. Dogs held by cords entering into it four or five feet become insensible, and are dragged out. The tomb of Virgil is near this place. The ancient manuscripts brought from Herculaneum are like pieces of charcoal about a foot long. I saw a person trying to unroll one of them. He used an apparatus like a miniature windlass, with a number of fine threads hanging from the barrel, under which the manuscript was placed. When the end of the roll was found, those threads were attached to it by means of scraps like goldbeaters’ leaf, and then most carefully wound up until more scraps were required. Many gaps were left, and in most cases the task was hopeless. I was informed that the matter hitherto deciphered from those papyri was not of much interest.