The Roman Question | Page 6

country with magnificent barriers. The Alps and the sea
protect it on all sides, isolate it, bind it together as a distinct body, and
seem to design it for an individual existence. To crown all, no internal
barrier condemns the Italians to form separate nations. The Apennines
are so easily crossed, that the people on either side can speedily join
hands. All the existing boundaries are entirely arbitrary, traced by the
brutality of the Middle Ages, or the shaky hand of diplomacy, which
undoes to-morrow what it does to-day. A single race covers the soil;
the same language is spoken from north to south; the people are all
united in a common bond by the glory of their ancestors, and the
recollections of Roman conquest, fresher and more vivid than the
hatreds of the fourteenth century.
These considerations induce me to believe that the people of Italy will
one day be independent of all others, and united among themselves by
the force of geography and history, two powers more invincible than
Austria.

But I return à mes moutons, and to their shepherd, the Pope.
The kingdom possessed by a few priests, covers an extent, in round
numbers, of six millions of acres, according to the statistics published
in 1857 by Monsignor, now Cardinal, Milesi.
No country in Europe is more richly gifted, or possesses greater
advantages, whether for agriculture, manufacture, or commerce.
Traversed by the Apennines, which divide it about equally, the Papal
dominions incline gently, on one side to the Adriatic, on the other to
the Mediterranean. In each of these seas they possess an excellent port:
to the east, Ancona; to the west, Civita Vecchia. If Panurge had had
Ancona and Civita Vecchia in his Salmagundian kingdom, he would
infallibly have built himself a navy. The Phoenicians and the
Carthaginians were not so well off.
A river, tolerably well known under the name of the Tiber, waters
nearly the whole country to the west. In former days it ministered to the
wants of internal commerce. Roman historians describe it as navigable
up to Perugia. At the present time it is hardly so as far as Rome; but if
its bed were cleared out, and filth not allowed to be thrown in, it would
render greater service, and would not overflow so often. The country on
the other side is watered by small rivers, which, with a little
government assistance, might be rendered very serviceable.
In the level country the land is of prodigious fertility. More than a
fourth of it will grow corn. Wheat yields a return of fifteen for one on
the best land, thirteen on middling, and nine on the worst. Fields
thrown out of cultivation become admirable natural pastures. The hemp
is of very fine quality when cultivated with care. The vine and the
mulberry thrive wherever they are planted. The finest olive-trees and
the best olives in Europe grow in the mountains. A variable, but
generally mild climate, brings to maturity the products of extreme
latitudes. Half the country is favourable to the palm and the orange.
Numerous and thriving flocks roam across the plains in winter, and
ascend to the mountains in summer. Horses, cows, and sheep live and
multiply in the open air, without need of shelter. Indian buffaloes

swarm in the marshes. Every species of produce requisite for the food
and clothing of man grows easily, and as it were joyfully, in this
privileged land. If men in the midst of it are in want of bread or shirts,
Nature has no cause to reproach herself, and Providence washes its
hands of the evil.
In all the three states raw material exists in incredible abundance. Here
are hemp, for ropemakers, spinners, and weavers; wine, for distillers;
olives, for oil and soap makers; wool, for cloth and carpet
manufacturers; hides and skins, for tanners, shoemakers, and glovers;
and silk in any quantity for manufactures of luxury. The iron ore is of
middling quality, but the island of Elba, in which the very best is found,
is near at hand. The copper and lead mines, which the ancients worked
profitably, are perhaps not exhausted. Fuel is supplied by a million or
two of acres of forest land; besides which, there is the sea, always open
for the transport of coal from Newcastle. The volcanic soil of several
provinces produces enormous quantities of sulphur, and the alum of
Tolfi is the best in the world. The quartz of Civita Vecchia will give us
kaolin for porcelain. The quarries contain building materials, such as
marble and pozzolana, which is Roman cement almost ready-made.
In 1847, the country lands subject to the Pope were valued at about
£34,800,000 sterling. The province of Benevento was not included, and
the Minister of Commerce and Public Works admitted that the property