occasions useless trouble and expense. But the
high roads in Piedmont, as almost everywhere in
the absolute states of the Continent, have been
the work of despotic sovereigns, who looked
more for show than for use, and who carved out
the ground rather with reference to their
arbitrary pleasure than with due regard to the
interest of their subjects, or the extent of their
means; and the example being set by the
contractors of royal roads, it has been followed by
those who constructed provincial and other
minor lines of communication. These vast tracts
of waste land, which bear the name of roads,
must necessarily be very difficult to keep in a
proper state of drainage, and indeed the difficulty
must seem so insurmountable to these worthy
people, that the very attempt is scarcely
anywhere made. The road is generally level, and
deep ruts and hollows are made by almost every
waggon going by. Add to this, that the wise
laws prescribing a thickness of wheel
proportionate to the weight of the waggons, are totally
disregarded. Consequently, even under propitious
circumstances, from one-half to two-thirds
of a journey have to be performed at
snail's pace. In foul weather, walking throughout
is the order of the day, with the addition of
very agreeable stoppages—stoppages often
without any apparent motive—more frequently
rendered necessary by "a screw being loose"
somewhere; for there never yet was an Italian
postilion, vetturino, or driver of any kind, who had
not to alight at about every half-mile's distance
to look to his harness—that harness which
always wants mending, and is never mended but
on the king's highway, as a diversion to break
the monotony of the journey.

Man made the roads; God made the
watercourses; and Undine is the guardian sylph of
Upper Piedmont. Down below, she unites her
streams into barriers against an invading foe; in
the upland, she teaches them to serve a hundred
purposes of health and utility. If there be one
feature peculiarly charming in this most lovely
and delicious country, it is decidedly the abundance,
freshness, and purity of its streams. At
the foot of the mountains, the water is only too
plentiful; it rushes in brawling brooks, dashing
streams, arrowy canals, down every hill-side,
along every road or by-road, close by the hedge
of every field, making everything brilliantly green,
and enlivening the landscape with its incessant
murmur. From the broad, mighty mountain
torrent—a torrent called by geographers the
Orco, but which the peasantry call L'Acqua
d'Oro, or the Golden Water—a hundred canals
and minor rivulets gush forth, which cover the
land for several miles on the plain, and enable
the cultivator to mow four rich crops of hay
yearly, under the scourge of a burning Italian sun.
Nearly the whole level of the Canarese land may
be, at the pleasure of its fortunate inhabitants,
under water. But in Piedmont itself irrigation
is still in a very imperfect, unsatisfactory,
slovenly state; and half a century's work will
be required ere the free Piedmontese bring their
country to the same flourishing condition as that
attained four hundred years ago by their
Milanese brethren. Some excellent works have
nevertheless been undertaken and carried through
in olden times by the wisest princes of the House
of Savoy; as, for instance, the beautiful watercourse
from Ivrea to Vercelli, commenced by
Amadeus VIII. in the fifteenth century.

It is only this same province of Vercelli, and
in the adjoining districts of Novara and
Lomellina, formerly part of the Duchy of Milan, that
the water, so wisely turned to agricultural
purposes, is partly used for soaking those risaie, or
rice-grounds, which are justly considered the
plague-spot both of this part of the country and
of Lombardy, Parma, and Modena, contributing
to the wealth of individuals at the expense of
the health of the masses. In Piedmont proper,
in the lowlands of Cuneo and Saluzzo, where
rice-fields were once, they have been drained by
the rigid decrees of the humane princes of Savoy,
two or three centuries since. There is no doubt
but the average of life for labourers in the rice-
plantations, owing to the necessity of leaving
the ground under water during the best part of
the hot summer months, scarcely exceeds thirty
years; and whole districts, with minor towns
and villages, and even the old cities of Novara,
Vercelli, and Montara, suffer severely from the
vicinity of the pestilential fields. The wealth
accruing to the country from this fatal cultivation
is, however, too great for any government
rashly to interfere with its pernicious source.
Provident measures are, indeed, taken to hem in
and lessen the evil, by limiting the cultivation of
rice to certain districts, fixing the maximum of
land to be employed for this purpose by each
proprietor, and removing it as far as possible
from crowded habitations.

Water may be made to serve other purposes
besides those connected with agriculture; it will
act as a partial substitute for coal and steam.
Till some of the scanty veins of lignite or
anthracite, which sanguine speculators every year
fancy they find in the mountains of Genoa,
Tuscany, and Naples, attain any degree of
importance, or till some of the specious schemes
for burning water, or for propelling machinery
by gas obtained by some miraculous chemical
process are brought to light, ill-considered
manufacturing schemes will prove as ruinous as the
South-Sea bubble did in England. Italy will
necessarily be tributary to England or Belgium,
or to some of the North American states, for
coal; and the high freight of so unwieldy a
mineral will always render an industrial
competition between the Mediterranean countries and
the northern storehouses of coals a very difficult
task for the former. Still, Piedmont and Northern
Italy, as well as Switzerland, enjoy a vast amount
of water-power, which, coupled with the cheapness
of labour, may enable them to carry on
several important branches of industry with
great credit and emolument to themselves. The
cantons of Zurich, St. Gallen, and others, have
raised themselves to the rank of first-rate
manufacturing districts. Industry goes there hand
in hand with agriculture. The cottage, busy