poor coming to be healed. At the time of our visit it was not yet open, the season not having commenced. This pious foundation has existed since the year 1604, when a small beginning was made by the sale of fragments gathered up from the remains of a high feast of the jeunesse dorée of that period.

I have often wished we could set against the total of those who have suffered in the earthquakes the incomparably greater number of cures and restorations to more or less happy existence of those who have benefited by the waters; and man has been far more cruel to his fellow man than ever has been Nature. It would be a grievous task to go through the history of the Neapolitan provinces, which has always found its echo in the neighbouring islands, and notably in Ischia. Tyranny, oppression, pillage, war-unreal words to most of us who run so glibly over them. The choice of King David might here give utterance to our conclusion: Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for His mercies are great; and let me not fall into the hand of man.'

Since the last earthquake, in 1883, the new houses have been built under Government inspection, after a plan adopted in Calabria, and are held to be proof against earthquake shocks.

Our island is not a winter residence, for the winds are cold, and storms make it too often impossible for steamers to land their passengers and mails. In July and August it is cooler than in the immediate neighbourhood of Naples, and in the month of June we found it delightful. It was free from the tourists, who mostly come in the spring, and from the multitude of midsummer bathing guests. If the vineyards were not in the rich ripeness of autumn, the flowers were in their early summer freshness. The bright yellow Spanish broom, in blossom all over the island, seemed continually to greet us with heaven-sent laughter, as in innocent gladness of heart victorious over an infernal havoc of lava. I recall one specially typical picture of this prophetic triumph on the road leading downward from Barano to Ischia, near the vent in the mountain-side of the latest eruption of 1302. Wide-spreading black lava blocks contrasted with the brilliant golden splendour of the flowers of the genista, springing up, Heaven knows how, in the crevices, and all aglow in the kindred glory of a setting sun. The right was flanked by a grove of pine trees, with their dark green billowy masses of foliage, while ever and anon the castle rock of Ischia came into view at the end of a forest glade, and the expanse of deep blue summer sea sparkled below in varying tints and lights.

Suddenly we had come on a little valley dip crossed by an aqueduct, which conveys water to Ischia from the one only cold spring in the island. Higher up stands the fragment of an ancient oak-the only tree not of comparatively recent growth that I noticed; but some old inhabitants are probably to be found in the chestnut groves near

Barano. The island yields little or nothing for the ordinary food of man. Everything must be brought from the mainland. The peasants are very poor, and they emigrate in numbers every year to America, never to return, as in other parts of Italy.

Everywhere the land is so broken up into hills, and rocks, and chasms, that almost every turn affords a fresh vignette. Our explorations were limited to drives in the little carrozzelle, and there is a fairly good road all round the island.

Monte Epomeo, 2,616 feet above sea-level, unrolls a wide map at the foot of the climber; and what a map is here presented may be foretold by whoever has but some slight knowledge of the classic sites which lie around Naples-I should prefer to say, which lie around the tomb of the immortal poet, for this tomb of Virgil is the ideal spot in a city alike indolent and corrupt in the past and the present, and where bright beacons of a higher and productive life are but

rare.

A bare mention of some of the renowned sites visible from the summit must suffice. The view was thus described to me by a nimble spirit who ascended the mountain :-Looking south is unfolded the entire Bay of Naples, with the well-known islands. Vesuvius, now slumbering, scarce seems to breathe from its awful mouth; the majestic outline of its silent slopes sweeps westward towards the city. On the right, the promontory and town of Sorrento, and the coast leading down to Castellamare. Pompeii and Herculaneum are indicated behind the suburbs, which extend in a long and weary line of streets into Naples. At the opposite end of the city, and nearer to our island, the villas and promontory of Posilipo. What shall I say of Puteoli, point of pilgrimage for all who follow the journeyings of St. Paul? Then the sulphurous neighbourhood of Baiæ; the lofty, wide-stretching promontory of Misenum; Cumæ, with its acropolis (nearly opposite to Casamicciola); the Gulf of Gaeta, whose past honours are divided between the Nurse of Æneas and Pope Pius IX., follows the long line of coast reaching to Monte Circello; while the Apennines of the Abruzzi are towering above the horizon on the left. Such is the bird's-eye southern outlook from Monte Epomeo.

There is no crater now traceable on the silent summit. As seen from Casamicciola, the highest point displays yellow sandstone rock surrounded by masses of many-tinted fragments of tufa, trachyte, scoriæ, pumice, and I know not what other combinations, running over from Nature's melting-pot. Further down we perceive clefts of the greyish-blue marl, which affords material for the industry of the island—the brick and pottery works. In this marl are found shells of fishes still common in the Tyrrhene Sea. The theory is that these submarine deposits, flung upward in the earlier eruptions, washed up with sea-water, hurled hither and thither, together with the lava,

finally choked up the crater's mouth. Later eruptions found vents in the sides of the mountain.

Ancient tradition tallies in some measure with scientific theory, telling how Monte Epomeo vomited fire and ashes, how the sea receded and then returned, overflowing the land and extinguishing the fire.

For examples of the lateral vents, see Monte Rotaro and Il Montagnone, a couple of little extinct volcanoes near Casamicciola, with lava streams flowing down to the sea. Another vent is evident at the head of the broad stream of the lava of the Arso, which marks the latest eruption of 1302, and which I have mentioned as now clad with marvellous beauty of flowers and trees.

Driving from Barano to Forio, we passed one of the many stufe, or fumeoli. Some of these pour out steam to the tune of 140° to 180° Fahrenheit, and in their depths may be heard the boiling and bubbling of seething waters and turbulent gases. The theory of their origin is the communication of waters of the sea with volcanic fires immediately underneath. This, of course, can mean nothing else than the visits of the god of the ocean, Poseidon, to his stormy old friend, Typhoeus, who is lying buried alive under the 'hard couch,' Inarime by name, which appears to have been upset over his mighty frame to bind him fast by order of Zeus. This hard bed,' Inarime, is now our fair island of Ischia. On the beach, near the pleasing little town of Lacco Ameno, we trod on a black, sparkling sand, sensibly hot to the feet, and in which hot water may be seen to rise immediately on our making such holes as children at play might dig with their small spades. The blackness is owing to an abundance of oxide of iron, the sparkling to the presence of quartz, and the heat to the untiring furnace below. Virgil sings, hard by to his mention of Inarime (En. ix. 714):

Miscent se maria, et nigræ adtolluntur arena.

But the black volcanic sand is not peculiar to Ischia; it is common in those regions.

We searched in vain, being no botanists, for a flower called by the islanders the lily of Santa Restituta. It is a plant of the squill tribe, flowering only in the autumn, and is fabled to have sprung up in the sand near the spot where Santa Restituta came on shore after she had suffered martyrdom in Africa, being thrown alive into a cask and cast into the sea. The church dedicated to the saint contains a series of modern pictures, telling the miraculous story of her life and her landing in the island. These pictures are full of feeling, and are well imagined, however wanting in technique. They are probably the work of some young enthusiast, but the 'parroco' could not give us the name of the artist, or tell us anything about him. The simple country people and sailors delight greatly in those graphic tellings of

the story of their honoured saint. They throng here on the day of her festival (17th May), this year delayed because of repairs going forward, and we were sorry not to remain a few days longer to behold the festive gathering. The 'parroco' told us the church is then decorated with straw work, which is an industry of the island, richly coloured and highly polished, but woefully wanting in taste.

(How is it, by the by, that, generally speaking and with few exceptions, all Italian work of the present day, from the statues of Dante to the straw work and the pottery of our island, is bathos ?)

In the chancel, beside the high altar, we found a Madonna and Child, by an Old Master-a painting of great merit in colour and expression, eyebrows and eyes singularly beautiful. Whether this picture was brought here from the convent close by, or what was the history of it, we could not ascertain. It stands in a very unfavourable light and position-the 'parroco' said because there was nowhere else to put it. I ignorantly suggested it might be removed to an altar in the nave, in place of some daub representing-I forget what. He replied, in a tone of astonishment, that it would be impossible to put a strange picture on an altar dedicated to some other saint or subject.

The basin for holy water at the church door is an exquisite little cinerary urn in white marble. From two cornucopiæ, reversed, issues a garland of flowers, and below is a basket, also reversed, containing fruits and flowers. The touching dedication is by a wife to her husband. It was found, with other urns and remains, in the valley of San Martino, near by. Another church in the street of the little town contains some of these 'finds.' A marble column is spoken of as having been brought from a temple of Hercules; but the doors were closed, and we did not effect an entrance.

I should not omit all mention of the church at Forio, planted on a rock jutting out into the sea, with a beautiful view, and interesting within from the many votive offerings of sailors and fishermen, and the painted tiles, which may perhaps be described as a coarse majolica ware. The road from Barano to Forio winds downward above the heads of numerous deep ravines, which run straight into the sea, and are here and there used by the peasants as wine-cellars.

One afternoon the small boy driver of our carrozzella, a sharp urchin of twelve years old, was bent on showing us Casamicciola antica,' a melancholy sight indeed. Houses in ruins, a large church in the centre, of which the walls only remain standing. This devastation was wrought by the earthquake of 1883.

From the earliest up to recent times, inhabitants and visitors have fled before the earthquakes. The first settlers in the island are said to have transferred their homes to Cumæ, on the opposite shore of the mainland. This latest earthquake of 1883 has left many beautifully situated villas uninjured, but now scarcely visited by

their owners, who are either intimidated by dread of a recurrence, or heart-stricken by memories of relatives and friends lost or maimed among the ruins. I noticed an unusual number of lame and crippled among the people, and was told that most of these had been among the victims. Dr. Menella gave us a touching account of the loss of his father, buried amid the ruins of their house. The story of his leading his mother away in safety reminded one of the narrative of the younger Pliny. Menella said the whole event remained in his mind like the memory of a bad dream. He could scarcely believe that it was his actual self who had endured that time, or that the thing had ever happened.

Hardly less heartrending was the recital of the poor old keeper of the cemetery, in which I know not how many of the gathered-in corpses lie buried. The old man lost his wife and five children-his whole family. I understood him to say that the ruins of his house are still lying among those we had just seen in 'Casamicciola antica.' He related at length the prompt visit of the King to the scene of sorrow, and the awful task of the soldiers employed in digging out the bodies. It was sad to hear that some of the peasants came down immediately from the hills and carried off money and valuables from among the débris. The site of the burial-place, above the sea, affords a soothing view of beauty beyond; but the high surrounding walls shut out everything, and enhance the deep depression and desolation of the place. It is passed on the road from Casamicciola to Ischia, at the foot of the little extinct volcano of Monte Rotaro.

We found the drive to Ischia one of the loveliest in the island, the sea ever and anon coming into sight just below, deep blue that day, with white-plumed billows rising and vanishing on the surface, chasing each other like evanescent swans. Near the town arises a grove of pine trees. And here, in the long street, is the Palazzo Reale ; and here, with its garden, richly planted on the lava stream, is the Villa Meuricoffre.

Built into and upon a lofty solitary rock of volcanic tufa rising abruptly out of the sea, at the end of a narrow neck of land, is the Castle of Ischia, whose outline is familiar to us in many sketches, and in Stanfield's grand picture, recently exhibited in London, the property of Lady Wantage. The story of the Castle would be the history of the island-long and distressful. It is hallowed by the memory of Vittoria Colonna, 'uncanonised' saint, sought by the master minds of Italy in that eventful period, and the honoured friend of Michael Angelo. Her name is inseparable from the Castle of Ischia. Through the utterance of her lofty and humble soul, in the sonnets and poems which were the consolation of her troubled life, she may become to us more than a name to conjure by. As poems they are of studied perfection. Restrained by the freno dell' arte,' they give passionate expression to unchangeable affection, and to the sublime