In other
places they were less palpable. Here, the temporary path was entirely
hidden by the incursions of a swollen torrent; there, it was faintly
perceptible in occasional patches of soft ground, or partly traceable by
fragments of abandoned armour, skeletons of horses and men, and remnants
of the rude bridges which had once served for passage across a river or
transit over a precipice.
Among the rocks of the topmost of the range of mountains immediately
overhanging the plains of Italy, and presenting the last barrier to the
exertions of a traveller or the march of an invader, there lay, at the
beginning of the fifth century, a little lake. Bounded on three sides
by precipices, its narrow banks barren of verdure or habitations, and
its dark and stagnant waters brightened but rarely by the presence of
the lively sunlight, this solitary spot--at all times mournful--
presented, on the autumn of the day when our story commences, an aspect
of desolation at once dismal to the eye and oppressive to the heart.
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