THE PONTE MOLLE AS IT APPEARED AFTER THE SIEGE OF ROME BY THE FRENCH IN 1849.

ANGLING FOR WOOD IN THE TIBER.

In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Cassius thus relates how he saved Cæsar from drowning in the Tiber:

Accoutred as I was, I plunged in,

And bade him follow; so indeed he did.
The torrent roared, and we did buffet it,
With lusty sinews throwing it aside
And stemming it with hearts of controversy.
But ere he could arrive the point proposed
Cæsar cried "Help me, Cassius, or I sink.”
I, as Æneas, our great ancestor,

Did from the flames of Troy upon his back

The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber
Did I the tired Cæsar.-ACT I, SCENE 2.

One of my friends, quoting this passage, observed how inap-
plicable this description was to the Tiber of the present day,
a river so narrow, he observed, that a person might almost
leap across it. Such was the impression he had received from
the works on Rome which he had read. I showed him the
lithograph of the Ponte Molle, from which he could see that
the Tiber was not quite so narrow as it has been represented
by those whose prejudices are stronger than their eyesight,
and whose powers of observation have been so little exercised,
that they are incapable of distinguishing between a breadth
of one hundred and four hundred feet. I also informed him
that, though wind had little effect in ruffling the surface of
the river, owing to the height of the banks, yet when swollen
by heavy rains, and nearly on a level with the banks, it rolls
along an immense body of water, and roars and eddies so as
fully to realize the description of Shakespeare. At such times

B

it would be a matter of difficulty, and even risk, to stem the impetuous current, and avoid the trunks of trees and rafts of underwood which the river is continually bringing down.*

On these occasions, those who happen to be near the river may witness an amusement or occupation of a novel and characteristic kind; that of angling for the wood, brought down, as I have said, by the floods from the Campagna and the forests of the Apennines. While some in their frail barques stem the violence of the current, and strive to arrest the progress of the trees as they sweep past their boat, others stand on the banks or the bridges, poising in their hands a piece of wood, from which project two which project two or three long and crooked teeth formed by the smaller branches growing out of the trunk from which the piece of wood is cut. This instrument, called in Italian "rampicone," or grapple, is attached to a long piece of rope, which is gathered up in the hands. When a log approaches within striking distance, a cast is made with the "rampicone," but usually, as far as my own observation goes, without success. Either it misses the object at which it is aimed or fails to grasp it with sufficient firmness. The log sails past and pursues its way to the Mediterranean, unless stopped lower down by some more skilful or fortunate angler.

It may seem that such an amusement ought to be wholly free from risk, yet fatal accidents occasionally occur. Some persons are foolish enough to fasten the rope to their wrists, and if they happen to hook a log of more than ordinary dimensions, they are unable either to resist the force with which the current impels it or to free themselves from the rope, and are dragged into the Tiber and drowned. In 1870 two persons perished in this manner.

On these occasions policemen used to be sent by the Papal government to warn the people against the dangerous practice which I have described. Nevertheless, one or more lost their

lives every year.

the

A man was drowned, May 21st, 1872, in attempting to swim across Tiber at Ponte Sisto, in order to escape the gens d'armes.-Libertà, May 23rd.

The boats are exposed to greater dangers, and are sometimes overset by the trees with which they come into collision; but those that man them are practised swimmers, and, as far as I can learn, always contrive to escape.

By far the largest harvest is reaped by these boats, and a considerable pile of wood is often collected on the top of the stairs which descend from the Ripetta to the river; but not as may well be supposed, in a condition for immediate use. Indeed, I have sometimes suspected, from the difficulty I found in getting it to burn, that a portion of the wood supplied to me had made a voyage down the Tiber.

The great quantity of wood and débris brought down the Tiber, among which may often be seen portions of the bank kept afloat by the bushes still adhering to them, coupled with the impetuosity of the current during floods, appears to me to be conclusive against the theory which attributes these floods to the damming up of the stream by scirocco winds. For the trees must be uprooted and swept away by torrents swollen by rain or melted snow, and the increased velocity of the river can be due only to the additional quantity of water poured into it from above; since the effect of damming up the stream without increasing its volume would be to render its current more sluggish. This subject, however, will be treated at greater length hereafter.

INUNDATIONS OF THE TIBER.

The Tiber is remarkable among the rivers of the world for the suddenness of its inundations, the height to which they rise and the devastation which they cause. These visitations have occurred at every period in the annals of the world, and have been chronicled by Roman historians and writers of the middle ages along with the wars and political revolutions of the time. The origin of Rome is associated with an inundation, and an inundation is said to have consummated the ruin of the city.

Thirty-six great floods of the Tiber are enumerated by an Italian writer, Jacomo Castiglione, from the birth of Romulus to the year 1598. The most remarkable of these I will notice, describing at greater length the inundation which happened in the reign of Tiberius, and those of the years 1530, 1557, 1598. Copious details of these, illustrating the manners, feelings and political sentiments of the times, are given by writers who lived not long after the age in which they occurred.

Several are mentioned by Livy, beginning with the year 214 before Christ. The most destructive appear to have been those which occurred in that year, and in 192 A.C.

For we read:

Twice in that year there were great rains, and the Tiber inundated the fields, causing the downfall of many buildings and great loss of life among men and cattle."*

"The Tiber inundating the city with more destructive violence than before, overthrew two bridges and many build

* “Aquæ magnæ bis in eo anno fuerunt, Tiberisque agros inundavit cum magna strage tectorum pecorumque, et hominum pernicie."-Lib. xxiv. 9,

A.C. 214.