Pliny’s Letters : (Church’s and Brodribb’s Translation, London, 1897). J. Phillips : Vesuvius (Oxford, 1869). C. Ramage : Nooks and Byways of Italy . C. Lenormant : À Travers la Lucanie et l’Apulie . W. J. A. Stamer : Dolce Napoli (London, 1878). E. Neville Rolfe : Naples in 1888 . Constance Giglioli : Naples in 1799 . C. L. Sismondi : Histoire des Républiques Italiennes . L. Alberti : Descrizione di tutta l’ Italia (Venetia, 1596). C. Mills : The Travels of Theodore Ducas (London, 1822). Les Dé

That the city of Naples can prove very delightful, very amusing, and very instructive for a week or ten days no one will attempt to dispute. There are long mornings to be spent in inspecting the churches scattered throughout the narrow streets of the old town,—harlequins in coloured marble and painted stucco though they be, they are yet treasure-houses containing some of the most precious monuments of Gothic and Renaissance art that all Italy can display. There are afternoon hours that can be pa

Nevertheless, it was from these dismal caverns, black as Erebus, that some of the choicest marbles and bronzes that now adorn the Museum at Naples were originally extracted. From a villa at Herculaneum also was taken the famous collection of 3000 rolls of papyrus, chiefly filled with the writings of the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus, perhaps the greatest “find” of ancient literature that has yet been made, although the contents of this damaged library, deciphered with equal toil and ingenuity

Before passing through the Porta Marina into the purlieus of the city, let us first of all instil into our minds the essential difference that exists between the ruins of Pompeii and the historic fragments of Rome or Athens. When we gaze upon the well-known sites of the vanished glories of the Palatine or the Acropolis, we experience no effort in looking backward through the vista of the past and in conjuring up some vague representation of the scenes that were once enacted in these places; the

To understand the story of the Mountain, therefore, it is necessary for us to travel back in retrospect to ancient Roman days. In the first place, however, one word as to its present name that we use to-day, for all are familiar with Vesuvius, but comparatively few, until they visit Naples, have heard mention made of Monte Somma. The name of Vesuvius, then, though strictly applicable only to the volcanic and modern portion of the Mountain, is not a recent appellation; on the contrary, it is prob

A lovely and a fertile scene it is indeed, and thoroughly typical of the peculiar charm of Southern Italy, wherein the rich well-tilled lands appear in striking contrast with the near-lying stony fallows and scrub-covered wastes. Beneath the picturesque pile of Santa Maria a Pozzano, perched aloft above the roadway, we pass along the edge of the sea-girt precipice, rounding the Capo d’Orlando, until we reach the pretty little town of Vico Equense, with its churches and gay-coloured villas nestli

Doubtless many persons will recall the great land-slip of December 1899, when almost without warning the whole face of the rocky headland that shelters Amalfi on the west tore itself loose and slid with a crash like thunder into the sea below, overwhelming in its fall the little inn known as the “Santa Caterina” and burying in its ruins two English ladies and several fishermen. The sinister scar still continues as a blot upon the lovely landscape, speaking only too eloquently to all of sudden de

As our carriage creeps slowly upward, we find the land less cultivated, and now and again we pass tracts of woodland whence little purling streams fall over rocky ledges on to the roadway. We catch sight of small clumps of cyclamen, and in the shady hollows we detect tufts of the maiden-hair fern— Capilli di Venere , “Venus’ tresses,” as the Italians sometimes call this graceful little plant. At a curve of the road we are confronted by a smiling old peasant with gold rings in his ears, who in th

Behind the long line of lofty well-built houses facing the Bay, the streets are gloomy, narrow and crooked, a labyrinth of dark mysterious lanes that contain no palaces or churches of note, and but few artistic “bits” to catch the eye and delight the soul of a painter. As in the case of Amalfi, the Cathedral of San Matteo at Salerno is almost the sole monument left standing of a past that is peculiarly rich in historical associations. Ever since the accession of the Angevin kings Salerno has rem

But flowers and shrubs are not the only occupants of the Poseidonian plain, for as we proceed on our way towards the Temples, we notice in the drier pastures large herds of the long-horned dove-coloured cattle of the country, whilst in marshy places our interest is aroused by the sight of great shaggy buffaloes of sinister mien. The buffalo has long been acclimatized in Italy, though its original home seems to have been the trackless marshes of the Tigris and Euphrates. The conquering Arabs firs

All is fragrant, warm, genial, and peaceful, save for the melancholy notes of poor ill-used Philomel, who is foolish enough to visit a cruel country, wherein every bird is merely regarded as a toothsome morsel for the family pot. We bird-lovers of Britain, with our Selborne Societies and our Wild Birds’ Protection Acts, find it extremely difficult to understand the utter indifference displayed by Italians of all classes towards the feathered race. The whole of the beautiful country with its cypr

It is an easy matter to cross from Sorrento to the island, whether it be by the little steamer that plies daily between Naples and Capri, putting in at Sorrento on its journeys backwards and forwards, or—far pleasanter if somewhat slower way—by engaging a boat with four rowers, who on a calm day ought to make the Marina of Capri in less than two hours. Nothing can be more delightful or exhilarating than this old-fashioned method of transit; and it gives also a feeling of superiority over less en

We halt at the port of Procida, with its flat-roofed gaily coloured houses lining the quay and ascending the gentle slope towards the Rocciola. Thence, skirting the low-lying fertile shores of the island, and passing the olive-clad islet of Vivara, we soon come in sight of the steep headland on which are perched the grey masses of the Castle of Ischia, “the Mount St Michael of Italy.” Covered from base to summit with fume-weed, lentisk, aromatic cistus, and every plant that loves the sun, the wi

It is a flat dusty stretch of road that lies between Fuorigrotta and Bagnoli; the high walls give only occasional glimpses of well-tilled parterres —one cannot call these tiny patches of cultivation fields—with thriving crops of brilliant green corn, of claret-red clover, of purple lucerne, and of the white-flowered “sad lupin,” which Vergil has immortalised in verse. The round bright yellow beans of the lupin crop, known locally by the name of spassa-tiempî (time-killers), afford an article of