Rome, Thursday, June 26, 1851.

I left Leghorn night before last in the French steamer Languedoc, which could not obtain passengers in America, but is accounted one of the best boats on the Mediterranean. The fare to Civita Vecchia (125 miles) was 40 francs, but 4 added for dinner (without saying "By your leave") made it $825. There were perhaps twenty-five passengers, mainly for Naples, but eight or ten for Civita Vecchia and Rome, although it is everywhere said that "Nobody goes to Rome at this season," meaning nobody that is anybody—none who can afford to go when they would choose. The night was fair; the sea calm; we left Leghorn at 6 (nominally 5) and reached Civita Vecchia about 5 next morning; but were kept on board waiting the pleasure of the Police until about 7, when we were graciously permitted to land, our Passports having been previously sent on shore for inspection. No steamboat in these waters is allowed to come alongside of the wharf; so we paid a franc each for being rowed ashore; then as much more to the porters who carried our baggage on their backs to the custom-house, where a weary hour was spent in overhauling and sealing it, so that it need not be overhauled again on entering the gate of Rome. For this service a trifle only was exacted from each. Meantime a "commissionaire" had gone after our Passports, for which we paid first the charge of the Papal Police, which I think was about three francs; then for the visÉ of our several Consuls, we Americans a dollar each, which (though but half what is charged by our Consuls at other Italian ports) is more than is charged by those of any other nation. Then came the charge of our "commissionaire" for his services. We took breakfast; but that, though a severe, was not a protracted infliction; hired places in the Diligence (13 francs in the coupÉ, 10 in the body of the stage), and at half-past 10 were to have been on our way to Rome. But the start was rather late, and on reaching the gates of that wretched village, which seems to subsist mainly on such petty swindles as I have hastily described, our Passports, which had been thrice scrutinized that morning within sixty rods, had to run the gauntlet again. I do not remember paying for this, but while detained by it the ostlers from the stables of our Diligence were all upon us, clamoring for money. I think they got little. But we changed horses thrice on the way to Rome, and each postillion was down upon us for money, and out of all patience with those passengers who attempted to put him off with copper.

Aside from those engaged in fleecing us as aforesaid, I saw but three sorts of men in Civita Vecchia—or rather, men pursuing three several avocations—those of Priests, Soldiers and Beggars. Some united two of these callings. A number of brown, bare-headed, wretched-looking women were washing clothes in the hot sun of the sea-side, but I saw no trace of masculine industry other than what I have described. The place is said to contain 7,000 inhabitants, but I think there is scarcely a garden outside its walls.

Half the way thence to Rome, the road runs along the shore of the Mediterranean, through a naturally fertile and beautiful champaign country, once densely peopled and covered with elegant structures, the homes of intelligence, refinement and luxury. Now there is not a garden, scarcely a tree, and not above ten barns and thirty human habitations in sight throughout the whole twenty-five miles. Such utter desolation and waste, in a region so eligibly situated, can with difficulty be realized without seeing it. I should say it can hardly here be unhealthy, with the pure Mediterranean directly on one side, the rugged hills but two to five miles distant on the other, and the plain between very much less marshy than the corresponding district of New-Jersey stretching along the coast from New-York to Perth Amboy. A few large herds of neat cattle are fed on these plains, considerable grass is cut, and some summer grain; but stables for post-horses at intervals of five or six miles, with perhaps as many dilapidated stone dwellings and a few wretched herdsmen's huts of straw or rubbish, are all the structures in sight, save the bridges of the noble "Via Aurelia" which we traversed, the ruins of some of the stately edifices once so abundant here, and the mile-stones. There is not even one tavern of the half dozen pretenders to the name between Civita Vecchia and Rome which would be considered tolerable in the least civilized portion of Arkansas or Texas.

Half way to Rome, the road strikes off from the sea, and there is henceforth more cultivation, more grain, better crops (though all this land produces excellently both of Wheat and Barley, and of Indian Corn also where the cultivation is not utterly suicidal), but still there are very few houses and those generally poor, the wretchedest caricatures of taverns on one of the great highways of the world, no gardens nor other evidences of aspiration for comfort and natural beauty, few and ragged trees, and the very few inhabitants are so squalid, so abject, so beggarly, that it seems a pity they were not fewer. And this state continues, except that the grain-crops grow larger and better, up to within a mile or two of the gates of Rome, which thus seems another Palmyra in the Desert, only that this is a desert of man's making. I presume the twenty-five or thirty miles at this end is unhealthy, even for natives, but it surely need not be so. All this Campagna, with the more pestilent Pontine Marshes on the south, which are now scourging Rome with their deadly malaria and threaten to render it ultimately uninhabitable, were once salubrious and delightful, and might readily be made so again. If they were in England, Old or New, near a city of the size of this, they would be trenched, dyked, drained, and reconverted into gardens, orchards and model-farms within two years, and covered with dwellings, mansions, country-seats, and a busy, energetic, thrifty population before 1860. A tenth part of the energy and devotedness displayed in the attempts to wrest Jerusalem from the Infidels would rescue Rome from a fate not less appalling.

We ought by contract to have arrived here at half past six last evening; we actually reached the gates at half past eight or a little later. There our Passports were taken from us, and carried into the proper office; but word came back that all was not right; we must go in personally. We did so, and found that what was wanted to make all right was money. There was not the smallest pretext for this—no Barbary pirate ever had less—as we were not to get our Passports, but must wait their approval by a higher authority and then go and pay for it. We submitted to the swindle, however, for we were tired, the hour late, we had lodgings yet to seek, and the night-air here is said to be very unwholesome for strangers. This difficulty obviated, another presented itself. The Custom-House stood on the other side of the street, and word came that we were wanted there also, though our slender carpet-bags had been regularly searched and sealed by the Roman functionaries at Civita Vecchia expressly to obviate any pretext for scrutiny or delay here. No use—money. By this time, change and patience were getting scarce in our company. We tried to get off cheap; but it wouldn't do. Finally, rather than stay out till midnight in the malaria, I put down a five-franc-piece, which was accepted and we were let go. Still for form's sake, our baggage was fumbled over, but not opened, and one or two more heads looked in at the window for "qualche cosa," but we gave nothing, and soon got away.

We had paid thirteen francs each for a ride of fifty miles over a capital road, where horses and feed are abundant, and must be cheap; but now our postillion came down upon us for more money for taking us to a hotel; and as we could do no better, we agreed to give him four francs to set down four of us (all the Americans and English he had) at one hotel. He drove by the Diligence Office, however, and there three or four rough customers jumped unbidden on the vehicle, and, when we reached our hotel, made themselves busy with our little luggage, which we would have thanked them to let alone. Having obtained it, we settled with the postillion, who grumbled and scolded though we paid him more than his four francs. Then came the leader of our volunteer aids, to be paid for taking down the luggage. I had not a penny of change left, but others of our company scraped their pockets of a handful of coppers, which the "facchini" rejected with scorn, throwing them after us up stairs (I hope they did not pick them up afterwards), and I heard their imprecations until I had reached my room, but a blessed ignorance of Italian shielded me from any insult in the premises. Soon my two light carpet-bags, which I was not allowed to carry, came up with a fresh demand for porterage. "Don't you belong to the hotel?" "Yes." "Then vanish instantly!" I shut the door in his face, and let him growl to his heart's content; and thus closed my first day in the more especial dominions of His Holiness Pius IX.