A comical blind fellow, as he called himself, came begging after me in the streets. I was about to give him some money, but observed he had a marvellous instinct in stepping over all the puddles that lay in his way. I asked him how it happened that blind men never wet their feet. He answered that they could always smell the water. “Yes,” replied I, “and I can sometimes smell an impostor.” We went on as far as Perugia, an ancient Etruscan city, standing, as almost all these cities do, on the top of a hill, and having clean and neatly paved streets. The walls of this city are three thousand years old. In the morning our road descended the hills into a beautiful plain. The women were in the fields, spinning and tending sheep. We came in sight of the lake of Perugia, the ancient Thrasymenus, and found a thin white fog lying on the surface of the lake, just as it was on the morning of the terrible battle, when Hannibal overthrew the Romans with such slaughter that the rivulet, which flowed through the battle-field, ran with blood. It thence received the name of _Sanguinetto_, which it bears at this day. This was the only fog I saw in Italy. Early in the forenoon, it vanished before the rays of the sun; and as we passed along the shores of the lake we contemplated with deep interest this fine sheet of water, diversified by a few little islands and skirted with green hills. All the scenery was rural, peaceful and soothing; and it was strange to think that on the verdant banks of this silvery lake, two mighty armies had once contended for the empire of the world! Beyond the lake, our path wound up a steep hill, where we stopped at the custom-house, for here we were to take leave of the Pope’s territory. While the officers were examining our passports, I read over Livy’s admirable description of the battle, the field of which lay directly at my feet. I could almost imagine I saw the furious hosts in actual conflict. The concluding passage is remarkable. “Such was the terrible shock of the conflicting hosts, and so absorbed was every mind in the tumult of the battle, that the great earthquake of that day, which prostrated many cities in Italy, stopped the course of rivers, raised the ocean from its depths, and overthrew mountains,--passed unheeded by a single one of the combatants!”