is one; and we had a great deal of this during the months of March and April, but perhaps we shall find the root of the present disorder, rather in the scarcity of food, and the consequent bad nourishment of the people. The quantity of asphodel (_Asphodelus ramosus_) in this wood gives it a very un-English appearance. After passing the wood, the road lies for two or three miles across a marsh, comprising a large pool, or lake. These pieces of water in flat countries frequently have considerable beauty; but I do not think that a Norfolk Broad, though somewhat similar, would give you any adequate idea of this mere. It is of considerable size, and the dark shade of the woods of Castel Fusano, with trees of the stone pine rising over some gently swelling hills at the further end, formed a beautiful feature; while as we approached Ostia, the high hills of Albano united with this wood and water to compose a charming landscape. The present town of Ostia is a miserable place, with a castle of the middle ages, which is certainly picturesque. The remains of the old city are at some distance; a large space of ground, all covered over with foundations and substructions. The principal building remaining is a rectangular brick edifice, probably a temple, in front of which was a portico; but the columns, and all the ornamental architecture, have been destroyed or taken away; some fragments still lying about, and others which have been removed to the Vatican, announce it to have been of a very beautiful Corinthian order; and both the style and execution correspond so precisely with the remains of the forum of Trajan at Rome, that I have no doubt in assigning it to the same period, and the same architect. A great deal of digging has been performed here at different times, but as usual, with the mere object of finding marbles or bronzes, without any regular system of operations, and without the precaution of making any exact plan of the foundations of buildings thus exposed and covered up again. On the other side of the principal branch of the Tiber are the remains of the port and basin of Trajan, now a shallow lake. It appears to have been a heptagonal basin of perhaps half a mile in diameter. The regularity of the form has been disturbed by time, but we may still trace the walls which surrounded it, and which indeed form a great part of its present boundary. Some of the marble posts to which the ships were moored, still remain; and there are fragments of what were probably warehouses, and buildings of that nature attached to this port. There is also a circular building which perhaps was a temple. The whole together was truly a magnificent undertaking, but whether it was a judicious one may perhaps be doubted. As a port, nature has declared against it, and it is destroyed, nor does there seem to have been any provision for keeping it clear.