Annibal recto itinere per Umbriam usque ad Spoletum venit, inde quum perpopulato agro urbem oppugnare adortus esset, cum magna cæde suorum repulsus, conjectans ex unius coloniæ haud nimis prospere tentatæ viribus quanta moles Romanæ urbis esset. If the inhabitants of the greatest capital in the world had equal authority for their ancestors having repulsed such a general as Hannibal, would they not be inclined to receive it as truth, and to transmit it to the latest posterity? This town is still supplied with water, by means of an antique aqueduct, one of the most entire, and the highest in Europe. In the centre, where the height is greatest, there is a double arcade; the other arches diminish in height, as they recede from it, towards the sloping sides of the two mountains which this magnificent work unites. In the cathedral, there is a picture of the Virgin by St. Luke; but we had already seen sufficient specimens of this saint’s abilities, as a sculptor and a painter, and we had not the least curiosity to see any more. LETTER XXXV. Rome. Leaving Spoletto, we passed over the highest of the Apennines, and then descended through a forest of olive trees, to the fruitful valley in which Terni is situated, on the river Nera. It was formerly called Interamna, on account of its standing between two branches of that river. The valley which stretches from this town to Terni, is exuberantly fertile, being finely exposed to the south sun, and watered by the Nera, which, by its beauteous windings, divides the plain into peninsulas of various shapes. The Emperor Tacitus, and his brother Florianus, were natives of Terni; but the greatest pride of that city is, its having given birth to Tacitus the Historian. I am almost ashamed to tell you, that we did not go to see the famous cataract, near this town, which is usually visited by travellers, and which, by all accounts, is so worthy of their curiosity. Innumerable streams from the highest Apennines, meeting in one channel, form the river Velino, which flows placidly, for some time, through a plain almost horizontal, and afterwards, when the river becomes more rapid by the contracting and sloping of the channel, the plain terminates of a sudden in a precipice three hundred feet high, over which, the river rushing, dashes with such violence against the rocky bottom, that a vast cloud of watery smoke is raised all around. The river Velino does not long survive the fall, but broken, groaning, and foaming, soon finishes his course in the Nera. Mr. Addison is of opinion, that Virgil had this gulph in his eye when he described the place in the middle of Italy, through which the Fury Alecto descended into Tartarus.