DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.785#0495
390 GBAVISC^:. [chap. xx.
ingredients. A little commerce, however, is carried on,
for it exports the two grand tests of Arab hospitality—
salt to Piumicino or the capital, and corn in considerable
quantities to France and England, as in ancient times to
Rome.1 This is in the cool season. In the summer
months the place is well nigh deserted. Not a soul enters
this fatal region, save under imperious necessity. The
doganiere turns his face to the waveless, slimy expanse,
which mocks his woe with its dazzling joy, and sighs in vain
for a breath of pure air to refresh his fevered brow ;—the
lonely sentinel drags his sickening form around the
pyramids of salt which stud the shore, using his musket
for a staff, or he looks out from his hovel of reeds on the
brink of a salt-pit, to the naked trembling swamp around,
and curses the fate which has consigned him to this
lingering death. It is a dreary spot, where danger is not
masked in beauty, but comes in its native deformity. Such
has ever been the character of this coast. Virgil describes
it as most unhealthy2—and the very name of Graviscse,
according to Cato, is significant of its heavy pestilent
atmosphere.3 The curse on Moab and Ammon is here
realised—" Salt-pits and a perpetual desolation."
The salt-works, with the exception of those at Cervia in
Romagna, are the largest in the Papal dominions. Eight
pyramids on an average, each containing nearly a million
of pounds, are annually made here. It is strange that
none of this salt is consumed at Corneto, which receives
her supply from Prance—the heavy duties on the native
product, as usual a government monopoly, making it more
expensive than that imported.
J Liv. IX. 41. I cannot learn that Ma. X. 184; Serv. in locum; Rutil.
coral is found on this coast as in ancient 1.282.
times.—Plin. XXXII. 11. 3 ^p. Serv. loc. cit.—ideo Graviscaj
2 Intempestseque Oraviscse — Virg. diefee sunt, quod gravem aerem sustinent.
ingredients. A little commerce, however, is carried on,
for it exports the two grand tests of Arab hospitality—
salt to Piumicino or the capital, and corn in considerable
quantities to France and England, as in ancient times to
Rome.1 This is in the cool season. In the summer
months the place is well nigh deserted. Not a soul enters
this fatal region, save under imperious necessity. The
doganiere turns his face to the waveless, slimy expanse,
which mocks his woe with its dazzling joy, and sighs in vain
for a breath of pure air to refresh his fevered brow ;—the
lonely sentinel drags his sickening form around the
pyramids of salt which stud the shore, using his musket
for a staff, or he looks out from his hovel of reeds on the
brink of a salt-pit, to the naked trembling swamp around,
and curses the fate which has consigned him to this
lingering death. It is a dreary spot, where danger is not
masked in beauty, but comes in its native deformity. Such
has ever been the character of this coast. Virgil describes
it as most unhealthy2—and the very name of Graviscse,
according to Cato, is significant of its heavy pestilent
atmosphere.3 The curse on Moab and Ammon is here
realised—" Salt-pits and a perpetual desolation."
The salt-works, with the exception of those at Cervia in
Romagna, are the largest in the Papal dominions. Eight
pyramids on an average, each containing nearly a million
of pounds, are annually made here. It is strange that
none of this salt is consumed at Corneto, which receives
her supply from Prance—the heavy duties on the native
product, as usual a government monopoly, making it more
expensive than that imported.
J Liv. IX. 41. I cannot learn that Ma. X. 184; Serv. in locum; Rutil.
coral is found on this coast as in ancient 1.282.
times.—Plin. XXXII. 11. 3 ^p. Serv. loc. cit.—ideo Graviscaj
2 Intempestseque Oraviscse — Virg. diefee sunt, quod gravem aerem sustinent.