Happy the man who with mind open to the influences of Nature, journeys on a bright day from Cortona to Perugia? He passes through some of the most beautiful scenery in all-beautiful Italy, by the most lovely of lakes, and over ground hallowed by events among the most memorable in the history of the ancient world. For on the shores of “the reedy Thrasymene,” the fierce Carthaginian set his foot on the proud neck of Rome.

The day on which I retraced my steps over this wellbeaten road, is marked in my memory with a white stone. Before leaving the Tuscan State, I halted at the hamlet of Riccio to dine, for the worthy merchant, my chance-companion, was wont to make this his house of call. The padrona was not long in answering our demands, for we had not arrived at sunset, expecting all manner of impossibilities and unheard-of dainties, but had drawn on her larder at the reasonable hour of noon, and had left our appetites to her discretion. The sun shone warmly into the room—the hostess smiled cheerily—a glorious landscape lay beneath our window—and what mattered it that the dishes stood on the bare board ; that the spoons and forks were of tin, and that the merchant's servant, and a bearded pilgrim in sackcloth, Rome-bound for the Holy Week, whom, in his pious generosity, my companion had invited to partake, sat down to table with us? Travelling in Italy, for him who would mix with the natives, and can forget home-bred pride, prejudices, and exigencies, levels all distinctions.