The country continued wild and broken till we reached Fondi, a town among the mountains, once notorious for its robberies. These were carried on so openly and to such an extent, that the government were obliged to surround the town with troops, and threaten to batter every house to the ground with cannon, unless the leaders of the banditti were given up. Since these fellows have been hanged, and the roads guarded with soldiers, travelling has been pretty safe. But nothing except force prevents the inhabitants of Fondi from resuming their old habits of robbery. I never saw so villanous-looking a set of ragamuffins anywhere else. Every man and boy in the town has the genuine countenance of a cut-throat; and the women do not look much better. We stopped here just long enough to get our passports examined; but that was long enough. Though the people are not allowed to rob, they almost make up for it in begging; for their impudence and obstinacy in this business nearly amount to violence. The whole population were either crowding around us, begging, or lying in crowds about the church steps, lazily sunning themselves. I longed to stir up the louts, and set them to work. From laziness to begging, and from begging to robbery, is a regular and almost inevitable progress. The road beyond Fondi ran along the shores, and in the afternoon we reached the territory of the Pope. The first sight we saw here was a herd of buffaloes in a field. These animals are tame, and used the same as oxen. They are not like the buffalo, or, more properly, _bison_ of the western prairies, but a distinct species of quadruped. At night we reached Terracina, the first town in the papal dominions. It stands on the seashore, at the foot of a lofty, precipitous rock. During the night the wind was high, and drove a heavy surf upon the beach. A bright moonlight made a stroll along the shore very pleasant. In the morning the wind had gone down, and we recommenced our journey. Here we entered upon the famous Pontine marshes, over which the road passes nearly thirty miles in a straight line, and a great part of the way bordered by trees. These marshes consist of swampy and boggy tracts, with lagoons of water and patches of dry pasture-land interspersed here and there. Herds of buffaloes and black swine were roaming about in the dry spots, and the lagoons were covered with flocks of wild ducks and other waterfowl; but not a human being or a house was to be seen. These marshes breed so pestilential an air in summer, that the neighborhood is uninhabitable. They are bordered by a range of mountains on one side, and on the other by the Mediterranean.