I am by no means unaware that I may be justly accused of ingratitude and indolence, if I describe briefly and in a cursory manner the land which is at once the foster-child and the parent of all lands; chosen by the providence of the Gods to render even heaven itself more glorious,[19] to unite the scattered empires of the earth, to bestow a polish upon men’s manners, to unite the discordant and uncouth dialects of so many different nations by the powerful ties of one common language, to confer the enjoyments of discourse and of civilization upon mankind, to become, in short, the mother-country of all nations of the Earth.

But how shall I commence this undertaking? So vast is the number of celebrated places (what man living could enumerate them all?), and so great the renown attached to each individual nation and subject, that I feel myself quite at a loss. The city of Rome alone, which forms a portion of it, a face well worthy of shoulders so beauteous, how large a work would it require for an appropriate description! And then, too, the coast of Campania, taken singly by itself! so blest with natural beauties and opulence, that it is evident that when nature formed it she took a delight in accumulating all her blessings in a single spot—how am I to do justice to it? And then the climate, with its eternal freshness and so replete with health and vitality, the sereneness of the weather so enchanting, the fields so fertile, the hillsides so sunny, the thickets so free from every danger, the groves so cool and shady, the forests with a vegetation so varying and so luxuriant, the breezes descending from so many a mountain, the fruitfulness of its grain, its vines, and its olives so transcendent; its flocks with fleeces so noble, its bulls with necks so sinewy, its lakes recurring in never-ending succession, its numerous rivers and springs which refresh it with their waters on every side, its seas so many in number, its havens and the bosom of its lands opening everywhere to the commerce of all the world, and eagerly stretching forth into the very midst of the waves, for the purpose of aiding as it were the endeavors of mortals!

For the present I forbear to speak of its genius, its manners, its men, and the nations whom it has conquered by eloquence and force of arms. The very Greeks themselves, a race fond in the extreme of expatiating on their own praises, have amply given judgment in its favor, when they named but a small part of it ‘Magna GrÆcia.’ But we must be content to do on this occasion as we have done in our description of the heavens; we must only touch upon some of these points, and take notice of but a few of its stars. I only beg my readers to bear in mind that I am thus hastening on for the purpose of giving a general description of everything that is known to exist throughout the whole earth.

I may premise by observing that this land very much resembles in shape an oak leaf, being much longer than it is broad; towards the top it inclines to the left, while it terminates in the form of an Amazonian buckler, in which the spot at the central projection is the place called Cocinthos, while it sends forth two horns at the end of its crescent-shaped bays, Leucopetra on the right and Lacinium on the left. It extends in length one thousand and twenty miles, if we measure from the foot of the Alps at PrÆtoria Augusta, through the city of Rome and Capua to the town of Rhegium, which is situated on the shoulder of the Peninsula, just at the bend of the neck as it were. Its breadth is variable, being four hundred and ten miles between the two seas of the far north. At about the middle, and in the vicinity of the city of Rome, from the spot where the river Aternus flows into the Adriatic sea, to the mouth of the Tiber, the distance is one hundred and thirty-six miles, and a little less from Castrum-novum on the Adriatic sea to Alsium on the Tuscan; but in no place does it exceed two hundred miles in breadth.