CHAPTER XXIV.
MONTEMURRO—THE CITY OF THE DEAD.
Montemurro—a Saracen settlement originally—was a place of great antiquity:
"Urbes oonstituit ætas, hora dissolvit."[1]
It stood upon a tolerably level plateau, surrounded on every side by deep ravines, in some places 700 or 750 feet in total depth, with precipitous sides of clay, and torrents in the bottom, falling into the Laderana. The plateau is also intersected in several places by smaller "nullahs," with abrupt banks; and the city had extended, until its buildings occupied the whole surface, out to and even beyond the very edges of banks above these surrounding ravines.
To the north and east, the elevated and rolling piano slopes back a long way, covered everywhere with deep clays, similarly cut into, by watercourses, and covered with oak forests and olives. Beyond this the Serra di Armento, seen in the horizon of Photog. No. 262, rises, and to the N.W. beyond this Monte Agresto; while high and far beyond both, the summits of II Santo Spirito are capped with snow. Montemurro, therefore, stood at the southern and south-eastern verge, and upon the outlying
- ↑ Seneca.
