"A few hundred crowns," said an inhabitant of Volterra to me, "would stop all this mischief. A wall at the bottom of the chasm, and a heap of branches of trees or other rubbish, to check the fall of the earth, are all that would be necessary." I asked why these means were not used. "Because," he replied, "those to whom the charge of these matters belongs, will not take the trouble. Somebody must devise a plan for the purpose, and somebody must take upon himself the labor of seeing it executed. They find it easier to put it off." The antiquities of Volterra consist of an Etruscan burial-ground, in which the tombs still remain, pieces of the old and incredibly massive Etruscan wall, including a far larger circuit than the present city, two Etruscan gates of immemorial antiquity, older doubtless than any thing at Rome, built of enormous stones, one of them serving even yet as an entrance to the town, and a multitude of cinerary vessels, mostly of alabaster, sculptured with numerous figures in _alto relievo_. These figures are sometimes allegorical representations, and sometimes embody the fables of the Greek mythology. Among them are some in the most perfect style of Grecian art, the subjects of which are taken from the poems of Homer; groups representing the besiegers of Troy and its defenders, or Ulysses with his companions and his ships. I gazed with exceeding delight on these works of forgotten artists, who had the verses of Homer by heart—works just drawn from the tombs where they had been buried for thousands of years, and looking as if fresh from the chisel. We had letters to the commandant of the fortress, an ancient-looking stronghold, built by the Medici family, over which we were conducted by his adjutant, a courteous gentleman with a red nose, who walked as if keeping time to military music. From the summit of the tower we had an extensive and most remarkable prospect. It was the 19th day of March, and below us, the sides of the mountain, scooped into irregular dells, were covered with fruit-trees just breaking into leaf and flower. Beyond stretched the region of barrenness I have already described, to the west of which lay the green pastures of the Maremma, the air of which, in summer, is deadly, and still further west were spread the waters of the Mediterranean, out of which were seen rising the mountains of Corsica. To the north and northeast were the Appenines, capped with snow, embosoming the fertile lower valley of the Arno, with the cities of Pisa and Leghorn in sight. To the south we traced the windings of the Cecina, and saw ascending into the air the smoke of a hot-water lake, agitated perpetually with the escape of gas, which we were told was visited by Dante, and from which he drew images for his description of Hell. Some Frenchman has now converted it into a borax manufactory, the natural heat of the water serving to extract the salt.