As a boy my tutors had yielded to my importunities and had escorted me to every one of those elevations near the city famous as viewpoints.

As a lad I had ridden out to each many times, whenever the weather promised a fine view, to delight my soul with the aspect of the great city citizenship in which was my dearest heritage.
To have been born a Roman was my chief pride; to gaze at Rome, to exult at the beauty of Rome, was my keenest delight.
More even than the acclaimed viewpoints, to which residents like me and visitors from all the world flocked on fine afternoons, did I esteem those places on the roads radiating from Rome where a traveller faring Romeward caught his first sight of the city; or those points where, if one road had several hill-crests in succession, one had the best view possible anywhere along the road.
Of the various roads entering Rome it always appeared to my judgment that the Tiburtine Highway afforded the most charming views of the city.
But, along the Salarian Highway, are several rises at the top of each of which one sees a fascinating picture when looking towards Rome.

Of these my favorite was that from the crest of the ascent after one crosses the Anio, just after passing Antemnae, near the third milestone.
This view I love now as I have always loved it, as I loved it when a boy.
To halt on that crest of the road, of a fair, still, mild, brilliant afternoon when the sun is already visibly declining and its rays fall slanting and mellow; to view the great city bathed in the warm, even light, its pinnacles, tower-roofs, domes, and roof-tiles flashing and sparkling in the late sunshine, all of it radiant with the magical glow of an Italian afternoon, to see Rome so vast, so grandiose, so majestic, so winsome, so lovely; to know that one owns one's share in Rome, that one is part of Rome; that, I conceive, confers the keenest joy of which the human heart is capable.
It so happened that Tanno had his litter opened, that I might get all the air possible, and the curtains looped back tightly.

Somehow, at the very crest of that rise on the Salarian Road, on a perfect afternoon, about the tenth hour, I came to myself.
I was aching in every limb and joint, I was sore over every inch of my surface, I was all one jelly of bruises, my head and my left shin hurt me acutely.

More than all that I was permeated by that nameless horror which comes from weakness and a high fever.
Now it would be impossible to convey, by any human words, the strangeness of my sensations.