It is in a
plain, twelve miles in diameter one way, not much less the other, and
entirely encircled with mountains of the noblest form. Casinos and
hermitages gleam here and there on their lower slopes. This plain is
almost the richest in Italy, and full of vineyards. Rieti is near the
foot of the hills on one side, and the rapid Velino makes almost the
circuit of its walls, on its way to Terni. I had my apartment shut out
from the family, on the bank of this river, and saw the mountains, as
I lay on my restless couch. There was a piazza, too, or, as they call
it here, a loggia, which hung over the river, where I walked most of
the night, for I could not sleep at all in those months. In the wild
autumn storms, the stream became a roaring torrent, constantly lit up
by lightning flashes, and the sound of its rush was very sublime. I
see it yet, as it swept away on its dark green current the heaps of
burning straw which the children let down from the bridge. Opposite
my window was a vineyard, whose white and purple clusters were my food
for three months. It was pretty to watch the vintage,--the asses and
wagons loaded with this wealth of amber and rubies,--the naked boys,
singing in the trees on which the vines are trained, as they cut the
grapes,--the nut-brown maids and matrons, in their red corsets and
white head-clothes, receiving them below, while the babies and little
children were frolicking in the grass.
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