Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/75

Rh age, to whose memory this monument has been erected by her sorrowing husband and father.

Those inscriptions, which have been found on the tombs of the Via Appia, bear witness to the grief of the living for the dead, but never of the hope of a reunion. On a great number of sarcophagi and the friezes of tombs may be seen the dead sitting or lying, as if they were alive; some seem to be praying. Many heads have great individuality of character. Sometimes a white marble figure, beautifully draped, projects from these heaps of ruins, but without head or hands; sometimes a hand is stretched out, or a portion of a figure rises from a tomb. It is a street through monuments to the dead, across an immense churchyard, for the desolate Roman Campagna may be regarded as such. To the left it is scattered with the ruins of colossal aqueducts, which during the time of the Emperors, conveyed rivers and lakes to Rome, and which still, ruinous and destroyed, delight the eye by the beautiful proportions of their arcades.

To the right is an immense prairie, without any other limit than that of the ocean, which, however, is not seen from it. The country is desolate; and only here and there are any huts or trees to be seen. The brook of Egeria here intersects the Campagna, and flows further away into the beautiful grove, which I shall visit at another time. We continued our drive to the place called the Round Tower, the highest point on the road, and where the view is the most striking. A little farm-house has been built here in a ruined tomb; outside was gathered a flock of sheep, as immovable, at the time, as the tomb itself. On the ledges