The vetturino as usual disappointed me as to the time of departure, but on the 26th of August we left Rome. I cannot boast much of the pleasantness of the party, with a wrongheaded driver, a foolish papa and mamma, and a spoilt child. Some of the scenes between the father and child were so disgusting, that I shall not venture to put them on paper. The former told me that he had educated the boy according to the system of an English author named Baloxello, who taught that a child should never be contradicted. Besides these there was a Frenchman, who was very pleasant and good-humoured; but he had loaded the carriage with a quantity of merchandize, and this was the source of considerable trouble and delay at the customhouses. In the cabriolet were two Englishmen, of whom I saw little. We slept the first night at Velletri, and were stopt the next morning at Cisterna with the story of a postillion who had been murdered the night before, in crossing the Pontine Marshes. The passenger within the carriage had escaped with the loss of a considerable sum of money, but the poor postillion, perhaps because he had not stopt immediately when ordered, or perhaps without any preceding salutation, had three bullets in his body. The horse on which he rode was also killed. The bystanders recommended us to take a guard, and our vetturino was very eager to persuade us to do so, but we reflected that there could be no danger in broad daylight, when the whole country was alarmed, and when besides, the robbers had plenty of money; and we proceeded without one. The body of the postillion was lying on the road, whence it seems that it could not be moved, till the appointed officer had been to examine it. The traveller had certainly been very imprudent in crossing the marshes without a guard in the dark, especially as he was known to carry money; and perhaps still more so to stop and sup, as he did, at a miserable little inn on the way. We stopt (but in the day) at the same place, and I could not help reflecting that I was perhaps in the very room where the robbery of the night before had been planned, and every thing prepared for its execution. The air across these marshes is delightfully soft and pleasant, but I felt no more disposition to sleep than I always do, when after early rising, I am travelling through a flat country. The Frenchman however, was determined we should not sleep, and by the help of talking, and a bottle of _vinaigre des quatre voleurs_, he gained his point as to those within the carriage, but the Englishmen in the cabriolet slept, and felt no inconvenience. I have met them several times at Naples, and it seems one of them has had something of an ague, but not immediately after the journey. The scenery for the greatest part of the way across these celebrated marshes is very pleasant; it is more like travelling through the New Forest, than across Romney Marsh; and the distant mountains present a feature of beauty which neither of these possesses.