showery day; but the sun shone at intervals, and brightened the stream and mountain sides. The road is new and good. At about one o’clock we reached a small town where a cattle fair was going on.[1] After some little delay, however, we got ponies and a guide, and proceeded. We now fell upon a true mountain path, winding up the hill beside a brawling torrent; the crags rose high above, and the branches of noble forest-trees were spread over our path—truly they were in the sear and yellow leaf; but the place was the more consonant with Milton’s verse—
“ Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where th’ Etrurian shades
High over-arched embower.”
As we climbed higher, a shower of sleet came on, and we arrived wet through at the Convent. No women are admitted within these sacred walls, but a forestiera is built adjoining for our accommodation.
The grassy plain, or platform, before the Convent is at the head of a huge gully or ravine, which
- ↑ “What were the turkeys a pound?” asked our guide of some peasants returning from the fair. “Seventeen quatrini,” was the reply. It requires a complex sum to reduce this to English value. There are five quatrini to a crazie—eight crazie in a panl—and a panl is about 514d; in addition, the turkeys were bought alive with their feathers on, and the Italian pound contains only twelve ounces. This was the market price in the country. Every edible pays a duty on entering Florence.
