I Could Not Help Fancying,
While I Looked At It, That As The Earth Grew Old, The Ribs Of Rock
Which
once upheld the mountains, had become changed into the bare heaps of
earth which I saw about me, that
Time and the elements had destroyed the
cohesion of the particles of which they were formed, and that now the
rains were sweeping them down to the Mediterranean, to fill its bed and
cause its waters to encroach upon the land. It was impossible for me to
prevent the apprehension from passing through my mind, that such might be
the fate of other quarters of the globe in ages yet to come, that their
rocks must crumble and their mountains be levelled, until the waters shall
again cover the face of the earth, unless new mountains shall be thrown up
by eruptions of internal fire. They told me in Volterra, that this
frightful region had once been productive and under cultivation, but that
after a plague which, four or five hundred years since, had depopulated
the country, it was abandoned and neglected, and the rains had reduced it
to its present state.
In the midst of this desolate tract, which is, however, here and there
interspersed with fertile spots, rises the mountain on which Volterra is
situated, where the inhabitants breathe a pure and keen atmosphere, almost
perpetually cool, and only die of pleurisies and apoplexies; while below,
on the banks of the Cecina, which in full sigjit winds its way to the sea,
they die of fevers.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 390 of 396
Words from 105632 to 105889
of 107287
