Most travellers, perhaps, in the old days came by sea from Marseilles and arrived from Civita Vecchia, by the dreary road which leads through Palo, and near the base of the hills upon which stands Cervetri, the ancient Cære, from the junction of whose name and customs the word "ceremony" has arisen,--so especially useful in the great neighbouring city. "This road from Civita Vecchia," writes Miss Edwards, the talented authoress of 'Barbara's History,' "lies among shapeless hillocks, shaggy with bush and briar. Far away on one side gleams a line of soft blue sea--on the other lie mountains as blue, but not more distant. Not a sound stirs the stagnant air. Not a tree, not a housetop, breaks the wide monotony. The dust lies beneath the wheels like a carpet, and follows like a cloud. The grass is yellow, the weeds are parched; and where there have been wayside pools, the ground is cracked and dry. Now we pass a crumbling fragment of something that may have been a tomb or temple, centuries ago. Now we come upon a little wide-eyed peasant boy, keeping goats among the ruins, like Giotto of old. Presently a buffalo lifts his black mane above the neighbouring hillock, and rushes away before we can do more than point to the spot on which we saw it. Thus the day attains its noon, and the sun hangs overhead like a brazen shield, brilliant, but cold. Thus, too, we reach the brow of a long and steep ascent, where our driver pulls up to rest his weary beasts. The sea has now faded almost out of sight; the mountains look larger and nearer, with streaks of snow upon their summits, the Campagna reaches on and on and shows no sign of limit or of verdure,--while, in the midst of the clear air, half way, so it would seem, between you and the purple Sabine range, rises one solemn solitary dome. Can it be the dome of St. Peter's?" The great feature of the Civita Vecchia route was that after all the utter desolation and dreariness of many miles of the least interesting part of the Campagna, the traveller was almost stunned by the transition, when on suddenly passing the Porta Cavalleggieri, he found himself in the Piazza, of St. Peter's, with its wide-spreading colonnades, and high-springing fountains; indeed the first building he saw was St. Peter's, the first house that of the Pope, the palace of the Vatican. But the more gradual approach by land from Viterbo and Tuscany possessed equal if not superior interest.