In bringing boats up the Tiber they tow them with three or four pairs of buffaloes. I know not how others find the air of Rome, but I myself found it very pleasant and healthy. The Sieur de Vielart told me that since he had been there he had lost all tendency to headache, an observation which goes to confirm that held by the Romans themselves: that the air is bad for the feet, but good for the head. Nothing is so adverse to my own health as listlessness and sloth, and in Rome I was never without occupation, which, though it may not have been always so pleasant as I could have wished, yet served to keep me from tedium. For instance, I visited and inspected the antiquities and the vineyards, which here are gardens and pleasure places of extraordinary beauty. There I learned how susceptible to the touch of art were these rough, rocky, and unlevel spots of ground, for the artificers here have contrived to win from them a graceful effect, impossible to imitate in our level country, and to turn these irregularities to advantage with the utmost skill. Amongst the most beautiful of these gardens are those of the Cardinals d’Este at Monte Cavallo, and Farnese at the Palatine; of Cardinals Orsini, Sforza, and Medici; of Papa Giulio and of Madama; those of the Farnese and of Cardinal Riario in Trastevere, and of Cesio outside the Porta del Popolo.[124] All these beautiful spots are free and open to any one who may desire to enter therein, or even to pass the night there with some chosen companion whenever the owners chance to be away, and they are scarcely ever in residence. Then there are always sermons to be listened to at all seasons, or disputes in theology; or again diversion may be found with some courtesan or other, but in this case I found one disadvantage, to wit, that these ladies charge as extortionately for the privilege of simple conversation (which was what I sought, desiring to hear them talk, and to take part in their play of wit) as for the supreme favour, and are just as niggard thereof. All these recreations kept me free effectually from melancholy, which is the death of me, and of irritability, with which I was troubled neither without doors nor within. Thus I found Rome a very pleasant place of sojourn, and I might go on to show that, if I had penetrated more deeply into the inner life of the place, I might have been still more pleased; for I must admit that, though I used all possible care and ingenuity, I only gathered acquaintance with the public aspect of the city, the same that she shows to the meanest stranger.