vacancy within, acted as nutriment. I have just read concerning these waters, in a book written by one Donati,[47] a physician, his advice being to take a light dinner and a good supper; and, from my experience after drinking the water for another day, I decided that his view was the correct one. Franciotti, another doctor, controverts him in this and in divers other particulars. That same day I had a feeling of heaviness about the back, which I feared might be caused by the stagnation in that region of the water I had drunk, but the outcome of the day’s treatment did not justify this suspicion. On the Friday I took no water at all, but bathed in the morning and washed my head, acting thus counter to the approved usage of the place. Another local custom is to aid the action of the water by mixing therewith some such drug as sugar candy or manna, or some medicine still stronger; others mix with the first glass they drink a certain quantity of the water of Tettucio, which I tasted and found it salt. I suspect that the apothecaries here, instead of fetching this water from Pistoia, where it is said to rise, make an imitation thereof out of ordinary water, for I found it had, in addition to its saltness, a very strange flavour. It is warmed and one, two, or three glasses of it taken to begin with, but I never knew that it had any effect. There are those who put salt in the first, or the second, or even the third glass of water they take; moreover, they hold that to sweat or to go to sleep after drinking, points almost surely to a fatal crisis. In my case I found the water strongly sudorific. [48] Let me now try to discourse a little in another language, especially as I am now in that district where meseems I may listen to the most refined Tuscan accent, particularly amongst the country-folk, who have not corrupted or changed their idiom through intercourse with neighbouring peoples. Early on Saturday morning I went to take some of the spring of Bernabo[49] which lies on the other side of these mountains and gives a marvellous abundance of water, both hot and cold. The hill is of no great height, and may be about three miles in circumference. The only water that is drunk is that of the principal spring and of this one, which came into use a few years ago. A certain leper named Bernabo, after having drunk and bathed at all the other springs, betook himself to this abandoned bath and was straightway cured, whereupon it came into vogue. There are no houses, only one little shed and stone benches around the spout of the spring, which is made of iron. This spout, though it was fixed not long ago, is almost entirely eaten away from below, its destruction being caused, as the people there declare, by the action of some property of the water, which I can easily believe. These springs are somewhat hotter than the others and are commonly supposed to be at the same time less digestible and more violent in action, the water being slightly more sulphurous;