On leaving Bolsena the next morning, the 7th, and within a very short
distance from that town we entered a thick and venerable forest, thro'
which the road runs for several miles. Fine old trees of immense height
covered with foliage and thickly studded together give to this forest an
aweful and romantic appearance. It is quite a _lucus opaca ingens_. This
forest has been held sacred since the earliest times and is even now held
in such superstitious veneration by the people that they do not allow it to
be cut. The Dryads and Hamadryads have no doubt long ago taken their
flight, but the wood, from its length and opaqueness, inspired me with some
apprehension lest it might be the abode of some modern votaries of Mercury,
people having confused ideas of _meum_ and _tuum_, and the _appropriative
faculty_ too strongly developed in their organization, and I expected every
moment to hear a shot and the terrible cry of _ferma_; but we met with no
accident nor did we fall in with a living soul. On issuing from this forest
we perceived on an eminence before us, at a short distance, the town of
Montefiascone. We stopped there as almost all travellers do to taste the
famous Montefiascone wine or _Est_ wine, as it is frequently called.
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