brosa is more than a sounding name-suggesting at best some vague place in the ideal realm of dreams, through whose dense Etrurian coverts of unnamed trees a fine poetic sunlight faintly shimmers, whose dim and shadowy paths and singing brooks are strewn by the ruffling winds of autumn with a wealth of innumerable leaves, and over which there hovers an undefined mysterious charm of unreality! Such at least it was to me before I visited it in the body. Nor did I find the dream those few lines had the power to evoke to my imagination, quite untrue to fact. Nothing could be more romantic, beautiful, and interesting in every way—whether sleeping and murmurous with whispers in the summer and autumn, with shadowy coverts for meditation, or rousing and wrestling with the storm - winds that descend upon it from the higher Apennines and assail its forests with their fury in the winter months. It is never tame or characterless, but silent, wild, lonely, secluded,

A MEDICI HUNTING-BOX.

3

gentle, or furious, according to the mood of the season, and responsive to every touch of feeling and passion.

I had been invited by a friend to pass a few days with her and her family in one of the most lonely regions of the large tract which bears the name of Vallombrosa. The once famous convent lies at a distance of about three miles from this spot; and here, in one of the hollows, they had hired an old deserted house, built centuries ago by the Medici as a stronghold and huntingbox, which they had fitted up and put into habitable condition as a summer retreat from the heats of Florence. Originally the house was flanked by two tall towers, and was castellated in form; but within the last few years the present Government, caring little for the picturesque, and apparently seeking rather to obliterate than to preserve the traces of the past, had ruthlessly and for no sufficient reason levelled

the two towers and razed the upper storey: so that the house is now a square unpicturesque but solidly-built construction in stone, two storeys high, and with walls massive enough to resist the assault of anything but modern cannon. Here my friends had made their summer home, far from all society and neighbours, to enjoy freedom, solitude, and the silence and charm of nature. There is no highway to lead the wandering tourist to their doors, and only friends who are willing to brave a long romantic mountain-path practicable but to foot-passengers, or donkeys, or treggie, find their way to this solitary spot. These treggie are merely the rudest kind of sledge, made of two long solid planks, with a seat midway, which are trailed along the ground by patient slow-moving oxen. No carriage on wheels could possibly bear the shock and strain of these rough roads, if roads they can be called, which rather resemble the rockstrewn ways worn by mountain-torrents.

So

one is not liable to morning calls in the latest of Worth's dresses, God be thanked; but the foot-passenger in stout boots and country dress is amply repaid for his walk, whether he come by the way of Podere Nuovo on the north, along a winding path through the woods, or by the monastery on the south, over a road commanding the loveliest and largest views over an exquisite and varied valley strewn with far-gleaming villages and towns, bounded by swelling outlines of hills or mountains, one rising after another against the delicate sky.

There, far away in the misty distance, can be seen the vague towers and domes of Florence; and through the valley the Arno and the Sieve wind like silver bands of light, through olivecovered slopes and vineyards that lie silent in the blue haze of distance, spotted by wandering cloud-shades, and taking every hue of changeful light from the pearly gleams of early morning

to the gorgeous golden transmutations of twilight and the deep intensity of moonlit midnight. Nearer, magnificent chestnuts throng the autumnal slopes, their yellow leaves glowing in the autumn sun. Sombre groves of firs, marshalled along the hillsides for miles, stand solemn and dark. Beech-trees rear at intervals their smooth trunks, or gather together in close and murmurous conclave. The lower growth of gorse, and broom, and brush, and feathered fern roughen the hills, where the axe has bereft them of their forest-growth; and in every direction are wild enchanting walks through light and shadow, alluring us on and on for miles. Here and there columns of wavering blue smoke tower and melt away into the blue sky, where the charcoal-burners are at work. Little brooks come trickling down at intervals, finding their devious way among the rocks and leaves, and singing to themselves a low and silvery song. Now and then a partridge whirs up beneath