The road ran down a long declivity, in a straight line, until it reached the plain, when it proceeded more diagonally, winding towards its destination. But that plain! Far and near it was a waste, treeless, almost shrubless, and with few buildings besides ruins. Long broken lines of arches, the remains of aqueducts, were visible in the distance; and here and there a tower rendered the solitude more eloquent, by irresistibly provoking a comparison between the days when they were built and tenanted, and the present hour. At the foot of the mountain, though the road diverged, there was a lane of smaller ruins that followed the line of the descent for miles in an air line. This line of ruins was broken at intervals, but there were still miles of it to be distinctly traced, and to show the continuity that had once existed from Albano to the very walls of Rome. This was the Appian Way; and the ruins were those of the tombs that once lined its sides,—the “stop traveller” of antiquity. These tombs were on a scale proportioned to the grandeur of the seat of empire, and they altogether threw those of Pompeii into the shade; although the latter, as a matter of course, are in much the best preservation. There were several near Albano, circular crumbling towers, large enough to form small habitations for the living: a change of destiny, as I afterwards discovered, that has actually befallen several of them nearer the city. Rome itself lay near the confines of the western view. The distance (fourteen or fifteen miles) and the even surface of the country, rendered the town indistinct, but it still appeared regal and like a capital. Domes rose up above the plane of roofs in all directions; and that of St. Peter’s, though less imposing than fancy had portrayed it, was comparatively grand and towering. It looked like the Invalides seen from Neuilly, the distinctness of the details and the gilding apart. Although I could discern nothing at that distance that denoted ruins, the place had not altogether the air of other towns. The deserted appearance of the surrounding country, the broken arches of the aqueducts, and perhaps the recollections, threw around it a character of sublime solitude. The town had not, in itself, an appearance of being deserted, but the environs caused it to seem cut off from the rest of the world.