The idea of writing a short narrative of a trip to the Mediterranean suggested itself by the numerous enquiries as to “where did you go?” “what did you see that afforded most interest?” It is difficult to compress into half-an-hour, with any degree of clearness, what can be seen in six weeks, and covering 5,000 miles. I beg my friends to accept this broken and disjointed attempt at description. I have tried to say a little about most that I visited, whether they treated me well or badly. L. S. D

“TRY a sea trip, if you can manage it,” was the last prescription I had from Dr. Banks, “it will do you more good than any medicine.” This was about the beginning of February. I found a companion in the same humour as myself, and it was agreed that we should make for the Mediterranean, going overland. Armed with passport, pistols, powder (Keating’s insect), candles, soap, Bradshaw’s Continental and Baedeker’s Guides, and other requisites too numerous to mention, on the 18th of February we starte

THE base of Mount Vesuvius is about four miles from Naples. In going to Pompeii you skirt the coast, having the burning mountain on the left. Pompeii lies four miles further on the margin of the bay, so that if another great eruption was to take place, with an east wind, Naples might stand in the same danger as Pompeii; still they build houses and villages and grow grapes up the mountain side. One village has been destroyed no less than eight times. We did not go to see the crater, the day we ha

AS you roll into the big railway station, and hear the sonorous voice of the railway porter pronounce Roma , there is an inward feeling of reverence and pride that you have reached Rome–“The Eternal City.” It was late in the evening when we arrived, and so we took up our quarters at the Hotel Continental, a large and modern hotel, situated on a high part of the town–one of the seven hills–and where malaria is not likely to find its way. There is a Mr. Forbes resident in Rome, who conducts and le