In the morning at five o’clock, we left Veletri; and, as it was fine, I walked some distance in company with the German. We had now to travel along the famous Via Appia, originally a paved causeway extending from Rome to Capua, and constructed by Appius Claudius the censor, in the year of Rome, 441; the original bed still remains perfect in various places. We soon, at the village of Cisterna, entered upon the Pontine marshes, formed by an accumulation of the waters from various streams arising on the neighbouring mountains, and prevented from running off, by a want of declivity in the ground, so as to constitute a swampy fen, formerly thirty miles in length and eight broad, and which is still in some degree, a fertile source of infectious miasma, which not unfrequently spreads disease and destruction into the very heart of the capital itself. Through many centuries, the whole energies of the Roman people, under their various consuls, emperors, and pontiffs, were in vain called into action to drain them; the glory of success was reserved for the late Pope Pius VI. who, in the year 1788, effectually removed this scourge of Rome. The Appian road runs through the middle of these marshes, bounded on the sides by canals, and shaded by double rows of elms and poplars. In the middle of the marshes we stopped to breakfast about eleven o’clock, at a very poor inn. Soon after which a carriage arrived containing the two English ladies who had slept at Veletri at the same inn where we did; but as they had taken breakfast previous to their departure, they were not induced to leave their carriage. About two or three miles before arriving at Terracina, we passed the celebrated fountain of Feronia, situated within a few paces of the road, and where the goddess of that name, formerly had a temple dedicated to her, but which has now disappeared,—not a vestige,—not even a stone remaining; while the once sacred grove by which it was surrounded, has dwindled away; one single tree hanging a solitary mourner over the violated fountain. It was here, that this goddess of liberty, and _donatrix_ of personal freedom, bestowed the boon of emancipation upon the slaves of ancient Rome, and which was confirmed by peculiar ceremonies performed at her altar. The divinity of the place—unlike its temple—imperishable and immortal—has taken flight to a more genial soil, from whence it is diffusing blessings over the greater portion of a once suffering world. Yes! Spirit of Liberty! “⸺the Britannia’s isles adores.” ⸺ “Oh! could I worship ought beneath the skies, That Earth has seen, or Fancy could devise, Thine altar, sacred Liberty! should stand, Built by no mercenary, vulgar hand, With fragrant turf, and flow’rs as wild and fair As ever dress’d a bank, or scented summer air.”—COWPER.