Tour to the Sepulchres of Etruria in 1839

rsued the high road to Florence, as far as Fossa, whence we took a guide across the fields for about two miles, pursuing a very ancient road which once led from some minor city to the superb metropolis of Veil, and which was still in use in the days of Tiberius; then sending our horses to the Isola Farnese, distant by a beautiful walk of two miles further, we went the rest of our way on foot. The spot on which we stopped was a hill separated by a deep ravine from two others. The one in front was once cover?d by the ancient and magnificent town of Veii, and the one upon the left hand had been its chief necropolis. The site of the graves in this hill, covering the illustrious dead of a nation now extinct, has but lately been discovered, and the ground is hired out to the different dealers and private antiquaries in Rome. We descended to the Formella, a brook running at the foot of the three hills I have mentioned, and the principal branch of which turns off through the Ponte Sodo, and washes the bottom of the front hill, which was once entirely crowned and enclosed by the walls of Etruscan Veii. We crossed the lesser branch upon rude stepping-stones, not far from where the streams separate, and then ascended a most natural and undisturbed-looking green hill, let out for pasture, where not hired for excavation. We toiled for some hundred yards without seeing anything, and at length came upon some brushwood which concealed a party of workmen. I was startled at the mom...