APENNINIAN SCENERY.

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rounded with groves and shady walks, leading from the house to the Fibrenus, divided into two equal streams by a little island covered with trees, in which was a portico, contrived for study and exercise. The clearness and rapidity of the stream, murmuring through a rocky channel; the shade and verdure of its banks, planted with tall poplars; the remarkable coldness of its waters; and, above all, its falling cascade into the noble river Liris, make it beautiful. The house was at first small, but was afterwards rendered spacious. It is now possessed by a convent of monks, and called "the Villa of St. Dominic." The villa where Marius was born, and which probably he sought in his calamity, was about twelve miles distant from Arpinum; and on the spot now stands the only convent of the austere order of "La Trappe," in Italy. Its present name is "Casa Mari." The lower parts of the hills are covered with vineyards and villages; and certainly no part of the Lavoro appears more fertile. The high Apennines on the left were white with snow; and range after range, leading to the higher points, were coloured with all the glowing hues of evening, at noonday-white, and grey, and pink. These beauteous scenes brought us opposite the ancient Arunca. Across a woody vale, we saw aqueducts, and various ruins, but missed the pleasure of examining them, through misrepresentation. Near St. Agatha, the ground sparkled in the sunbeams; and the graceful olives and carrobba hung their boughs as if to shade the beauteous colours of the distant mountains.

At a turn of the road, the whole scene was changed. One vast mountain, the colour of brown paper, was on our left, in heaving nodules, without vegetation, as smooth

as one's hand; but we were now reaching the ancient city of Capua.

Are you trembling for our morals? Two thousand years have certainly given the earth such a spin upon its axis, that its clime is changed.' Benumbed with cold, we entered its miserable postà; and, in a room like a well, received our evening lesson in endurance, and the first specimen of Neapolitan "improvisatori." We were much amused with the facility with which the events of our journey, and numerous compliments, were framed; and afterwards looked into the church of the Annunziatà, to perceive with grief these simple people paying their evening's devotion at the shrine of the Virgin.

We left our uncomfortable nest, prepared to catch the view of the Bay of Naples, and of Vesuvius. But, alas! by one unchanging line of road-through one unchanging orchard of trees cut into a fork-like shape, to sustain the vines with their heavy load in summer-through an atmosphere neither awful with clouds nor bright with sunshine, but still and grey, and foggy and cold-on a road covered with military carts, we were conducted to that Napoli which the inhabitants say one is to see and die.

CHAPTER XXV.

Naples The Corso-Giardino Reale-Grotto of Posilipo-Strada Nuovo-Bay of Naples-Pozzuoli, anciently Puteol, the Port of St. Paul-New Mountain-Lake Avernus-Acherontic LakeBay of Baja and its environs.

THE descent from the Capuan road towards Naples presents the noblest view of a city I ever beheld. Its fine amphitheatric-form and elevation; its extent, its bay, its mountains, its promontories, its islands-each contribute to form a most magnificent scene; but one misses at once the fine domes of Rome, and is reconciled to the Exchange only by recalling the wonderful phenomena by which the place is surrounded, the calamities they have occasioned, the buried cities of the shores, and the fables of its poetic bards.

The Bay of Naples is terminated on each side by a fine promontory: on the right, that of Misenum; on the left, that of Massa; and in its centre is the island of Capri. The horizontal line of sea between the promontories extends sixteen miles. The city itself reposes on the Posilipo, the St. Ermo, and the Antignano hills. The promontory on the left of the bay presents the threatening summit of Vesuvius, with the Apennines rising in rugged succession. We entered this interesting region on the 20th of January, in the midst of cold and rain.

On Sunday the snow covered the ground. On Monday we sat with the window-shutters closed, to keep out the

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strong wind and rain. The thunder rolled awfully over our heads, and the waves broke furiously on the shore; but in the midst of all we felt that we had great reason to say, with the Royal Psalmist, O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, and his mercy endureth for ever." After a week of bad weather, spent by a wood fire at the Crocelli, a pleasant inn at the back of the Castello Uovo, the sun came nobly forth, and all the beauties of this enchanting bay opened upon us. We took a good lodging on the Chiaja, at the English surgeon's, opposite the Giardino Reale, and with the bay and the island of Capri beyond. For a floor, the charge was eighty piastres per month; and for a barouche, a piastre and a half for half a day, and two and a half for a whole day. The Corso of Naples runs between our abode and the Giardino Reale. The pedestrian population is that of St. Giles's, with more good nature. Thursdays and Sundays are the gala days; and after dinner, between three and five, the time of the exhibition of the carriages and beau monde, when, for a mile, there is generally one row of carriages going up and the other returning. It struck us that the Neapolitan ladies, in their carriage costume, imitated the English quite as much as the French. Their figures are bad, but they have a strong expression of sensibility. One of the iron gates into the Royal Garden is opposite the "Palazzo Reily," in which were our quarters. Towards the sea, the garden is defended from the strong southern breezes by rows of ilex, and in summer their shade is most grateful. That part of the garden nearest to the city is ornamented with flower-beds; and it has, through its whole length, walks and rows of trees, with statues and fountains. The lower half has many pretty shrubberies. The statues are most of

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them good copies of the beautiful originals we saw in Rome. In the midst of an execrable slough is a very graceful Europa;" but the odour is so intolerable that it is scarcely possible to stand to examine it. This particular spot is a disgrace to the city: indeed in this garden you breathe anything but the spices of Araby, nor can all the winds of the ocean dissipate this noisome pestilence. About a third of the way down the garden is a pier, projecting like the stern of a ship. From this station the shore recedes in two fine curvatures, the one having the Castello Uovo as its front object, the other open, and enlivened with fishing boats. Over these rises the hill of Posilipo, extending for two miles. Its horizontal line is an elliptical semi-arch: it has been termed " the shelter from sorrow." It has received the dust of Virgil: its soil is the product of the volcanic forge. Thousands of caves cut in its sides have sheltered the outcast and the wretched; and the storms of the ocean continually breaking on its shores, shatter them into innumerable bays and gulphs, leaving its cliffs in various fantastic shapes.

We did not suffer many days to elapse before we penetrated its famous grotto, where its sepulchral lamps make “darkness visible." The yells of its savage frequenters, the hollow echo of its lofty vault, the loud trampling of the horses, the cracking of the drivers' whips, the swiftness of the steeds, the dim and distant landscape, seen through the yellow unaccustomed light, the loud cries of “carità” from the distressed, the doubt of safety, the sudden shroud of dampness that comes over you, all combine to obliterate the work of art, and to leave you only sensible to personal danger.

I felt inclined to join in the action of some Frenchmen,