Two Pilgrims' Progress; from fair Florence, to the eternal city of Rome
Part 9
Left Perugia about 3 o'clock I covered their fifth and sixth to-day, and went down a pretty days' ride, this time by myself on steep descent.... The road began to the tricycle, in three hours and a ascend before reaching the village half actual riding time, and was of Mugione; ... between 5 and 6 we pulled up the long hill into came in sight of the Lake of Perugia, in a most easy and Thrasymene, ... then reached the delightful way, behind the town of Passignano. (He stayed diligence. there all night.
SIXTH DAY.
We started at 6 o'clock ... [for Arezzo]. We saw Cortona, like so many other cities in this region, on its hill, and arrived about noon at Arezzo.
From Arezzo, Hawthorne went directly to Florence in one day, over a road which Italian cyclers have told me is excellent, and which is the post-road to Rome. We went by way of Montepulciano and Siena, being between two and three weeks on the way. I hope this short account of about one third of our ride will convince other people that cycling is far quicker than the old posting system, far pleasanter than riding in a stuffy railway-carriage, which whirls you through tunnels, and far the best way in which to see Italy,--a country which abounds in magnificent roads, and which should be thoroughly explored by all cyclers who care for something beside record-making.
University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge.
Transcriber Notes:
Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_.
Small caps were replaced with ALL CAPS.
Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of the speakers. Those words were retained as-is.
In three instances there were cases where the word "eat" appeared one expect the word "ate". No change was made.
The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up paragraphs and so that they are next to the text they illustrate.
In the Appendix, the pages were reformatted to to make it easier to read in an electronic form.
Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected unless otherwise noted.