The next morning we found ourselves
in the harbor of Civita Vecchia, and, going ashore with our luggage, went
through a blind turmoil with custom-house officers, inspectors of
passports, soldiers, and vetturino people. My wife and I strayed a
little through Civita Vecchia, and found its streets narrow, like clefts
in a rock (which seems to be the fashion of Italian towns), and smelling
nastily. I had made a bargain with a vetturino to send us to Rome in a
carriage, with four horses, in eight hours; and as soon as the
custom-house and passport people would let us, we started, lumbering
slowly along with our mountain of luggage. We had heard rumors of
robberies lately committed on this route; especially of a Nova Scotia
bishop, who was detained on the road an hour and a half, and utterly
pillaged; and certainly there was not a single mile of the dreary and
desolate country over which we passed, where we might not have been
robbed and murdered with impunity. Now and then, at long distances, we
came to a structure that was either a prison, a tavern, or a barn, but
did not look very much like either, being strongly built of stone, with
iron-grated windows, and of ancient and rusty aspect.
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