There is also a Roman aqueduct in the
neighbourhood, eleven Italian miles in length.
We arrived at Terni at three o'clock and immediately hired a _caleche_ (the
other travellers and myself) to visit the famous cascade of the Velino,
about three miles distant from the town of Terni. The road thither is very
rugged, and is a continual ascent on the flank of a ravine. For a long time
before you arrive on the brink of the cascade, you hear the roaring of the
waters; and it certainly is the most magnificent and awe-inspiring sight of
the kind I ever beheld. It is far more stupendous than any cascade in
Switzerland. That of Tivoli compared to it is as an infant six months old
to a Goliath. The Velino forms three successive falls, and the last is
tremendous, since it falls from a height of 1,068 feet into the abyss
below. The foam and the froth it occasions is terrific; and the spray
ascends so high that in standing at the distance of fifty yards from the
fall you become as wet as if you had been standing in a shower of rain. The
first fall it forms is of 800 feet; the second little less; the third I
have stated already. No painting can possibly give a faithful delineation
of this, and very possibly no poetic description can give an adequate idea
thereof.
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