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LIFE OF COLONEL MACERONI.

and here and there another elevated promontory pro-jects into the sea, the coasts of Italy are low and sandy.A breadth of sand hills, next to the water, about 100 yardswide, is studded with juniper bushes, which, as well as thesand hills, increase in size and elevation, as they recedefrom the water. Next comes a belt of myrtles, forming adense wood, from twenty to thirty feet high, growing on alight soil, covered with the finest turf, and moss, and sweetherbs, and flowers of various kinds. This myrtle wood isoften a mile or more in breadth, by ten or more in length,and is succeeded by a vast swamp, overgrown with animpenetrable mass of reeds, alders, and willows. Thebreadth of this swampy labyrinth, is oftentimes of severalmiles, and only terminates where the land begins to risetowards the mountains, such is the case in the Pontinemarshes, and in those of Patria, Mondragoni, Licola,Pacstum, Fondi, &c.

It generally happens that, dragging its slow length along,parallel to the coast, in the region of reeds, is a sluggish,deep, silent stream, either natural or originating in anancient attempt to drain the district. High masses of rust-ling reeds overhang the bankless borders of these waters.“ Bankless,” because, for a great distance beyond theapparent margin of the water, the reeds, and moss, andwater plants, form a floating surface, intersected by deepholes, and by the entrances at right angles, of numeroussmall canals, dug either in former times, or more recentlyby the fowlers and fishermen who inhabit these regions.These industrious men catch great quantities of fish, espe-cially eels, by intercepting them in their passage up ordown their canals, according to the rise or fall of the watersthrough changes in the weather. These clear, thoughblackish coloured waters, with their sublitoral abysses,covered by the floating masses, luxuriant with reeds and