So much for the days of old! A battalion of French troops would however now hardly allow themselves to be repulsed by the descendants of these victors of Hannibal. _16th._ Leaving Spoleto, we passed by a very lofty aqueduct, which conveys the water from the mountains across the valley to the town. A mile or two further on we came to a very long hill, where we had two oxen added to our four horses, to ascend it. The descent on the other side to Terni is still longer: the pass through the mountains is in many places exceedingly narrow, and on each side of the road are lofty rocks; the mountains are wild and mostly uncultivated, and are chiefly covered with dark laurel bushes; on the whole road there is not a village for the poste, and half a dozen houses at Stretura hardly deserve the name of one. A mile or two before Terni the valley widens, and the dark laurel trees give place to groves of olives and green fields, whilst here and there a tall cypress is seen rising from out of the gardens near the town. I was much disappointed here, in not being able to see the celebrated Falls of the Velino, which are only five miles distant from Terni; but as Sir Humphry only stopped to bait, it was impossible for me to do so. There were many carriages at the inn, English, French, and Russian, but the company to whom they belonged were all gone to see the Falls. Between Terni and Narni, we entered upon a wide and open though still hilly country, through which the Velino winds slowly along. Narni is certainly the most beautifully situated town that I have seen in the Appenines, lying at the side of a hill, at the foot of which the green waters of the Nera roll through a deep romantic glen, out of whose wooded sides gigantic masses of rock are seen to rise, in and upon which many old dwellings, now uninhabited, are discovered. The road from hence to Lavenga is fine and hilly, and between this latter and Otricoli, the mountains open, and show us in the distance Mount Soracte, ----"which from out the plain Heaves, like a long swept wave about to break, And on the curl hangs pausing," the Tiber winding slowly along, and, still further, another chain of distant mountains. The inn at Otricoli was the worst of the many bad ones we have met with among the Appenines, for there was literally nothing to be had in the house; and the only waiter who was to be seen was drunk.