From Civita Vecchia to Rome, a distance of some sixteen leagues, cultivation struck me in the light of a very rare accident, to which the soil was but little accustomed.

Some pasture fields, some land in fallow, plenty of brambles, and, at long intervals, a field with oxen at plough, this is what the traveller will see in April.

He will not even meet with the occasional forest which he finds in the most desert regions of Turkey.

It seems as if man had swept across the land to destroy everything, and the soil had been then taken possession of by flocks and herds.
The country round Rome resembles the road from Civita Vecchia.

The capital is girt by a belt of uncultivated, but not unfertile land.