Heard near, it is deafening and disagreeable. But when
refined by distance, it has a sad and pleasant effect, and seems to
belong to the place,--the long wail at the close being the very type
of the melancholy stretches of the Campagna. In the same way I have
frequently thought that the _Jodeln_ of the Swiss was an imitation of
the echo of the mountains, each note repeated first in octave, or fifth,
and then in its third below. The Campagna song is to be heard not only
in the Campagna, but everywhere in the country,--in the vineyards,
in the grain-fields, in mountain and valley, from companies working
together, and from solitary _contadini_,--wherever the influence and
sentiment of the Roman Campagna is felt. The moment we get into Tuscany,
on the one side, or over into Naples, on the other, it begins to be
lost. It was only the other day, at nightfall, that I was sauntering
out on the desolate Campagna towards Civita Vecchia. The shadows were
deepening and the mists beginning to creep whitely along the deep
hollows.
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