"Your space will hardly allow me to enter into details concerning his scheme, whose broadest outlines are as follows: Provide a new channel for the Tiber, which, during floods, shall conduct all its waters in a free and uninterrupted course. For the sake of crossing, the line must be governed by the levels of the valley through which it runs. It may be constructed at the junction of the Teverone with the Tiber, be carried along the line of the Fossa della Maranella, and, passing through the higher ground in the line of the second milestone on the Via Tusculana da Roma, it would enter the depression of the Fiume Alarone, and finally anastomose with the old bed near the Ponto della Moletta, about a kilometre and a quarter outside the Porta San Paolo. Mr. Page would continue his new channel so as to cut off the reach of the Prati di S. Paolo, passing to the west of the celebrated Basilica, so called, and, by an embankment with gates and sluices at the sharp bend near the Porta della Puzzolana, he would convert the old channel into the Port of Rome. At the embouchure of the Teverone he would throw a similar embankment; and thus the Tiber, cleansed of all mud and deposits, would become an ornamental stream, or rather lake whose banks, about three miles long, would be the most pleasant of promenades. I need hardly remark that this insulation of Rome, and this replacement by drainage and irrigation of the fatal Campagna atmosphere, would amazingly increase the value of the land, and make the profits of its sale pay for the expenses of the works. "The _Times_ review of Signor Pareto's labours has sketched for the benefit of the general reader all the interesting features of pasturage and tillage in the large towns known as the Agro Romano. Mr. Page's plan would give the opportunity and the means of training the Campagna into one of the most productive and salubrious districts in Italy. With an extent of 311,550 hectares of valuable land, with a new channel for drainage, and with improved means of irrigation, the suburban district of Rome will soon become worthy of her greatness, past and present. "I only hope that Mr. Page will soon be permitted to publish in detail this sketch, whose outlines you have allowed me to make public. The Holy City, I need hardly say, is not so much the capital of Italy as the capital of Europe, and consequently the capital of the world. "I am, sir, yours truly, "RICHARD F. BURTON, F.R.G.S. "Southampton, October 24th, 1872." The Tiber business after this was brought out as a brand-new-idea by another man in 1874, so I had to write the following:-- "THE TIBER. "To the Editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_.