EXTENSIVE VIEW. 213 



phureous fumes behold the gay and glittering city of Naples, with 

 its mole, its ships, its churches, theatres, palaces, and splendid poor- 

 house, all admirably contrasted with the finely wooded Camaldoni. 

 Capo di Monti, and all the rural and picturesque beauty of the neigh- 

 bouring hills, the plain of Campania, in the rear and the Apennine 

 ridges in the distance. Look again to the right and see Vesuvius 

 rising from the plain below, with its yawning crater, convent, hermi- 

 tage, scorched cone, and black lava-currents, extending from the 

 summit down its sides and into the bay of Naples, forming rocky 

 promontories on the seashore. Here every colour and every propor- 

 tion of light and shade appears in harmonious contrast, while the modern 

 towns of Portici and Torre del Greco skirt the bay, and rest on the 

 ruins of Herculaneum and many a Roman villa! Look down on 

 this side of Vesuvius and you will descry among yon clustering vines 

 a huge heap of rubbish, an amphitheatre, and other extensive ruins; 

 while ever and anon a buffalo cart will be seen to discharge its load 

 of ashes and rubbish ; that is Pompeii i Once a gay city and seaport, 

 till overwhelmed by an eruption from Vesuvius; see the silvery 

 stream of the Sarnus winding round the side of Vesuvius, and me- 

 andering through the gardens in its way to the bay. Castell a mare 

 the ancient Stabiar, lies beneath your feet, hid by the bluff projec- 

 tions of the mountain, on which you stand. But observe yonder 

 muleteer loading his beast with snow from the leaf covered pit, within 

 a few yards of your position, his load is destined to cool the throats 

 of the thirsty Neapolitans. The wood cutter is availing himself of 

 the laws of nature and of mechanics, in conveying the produce of 

 his labour from this elevated region down to the sea; he has fixed a 

 series of long ropes, in a zig-zag manner, across the ravines ; forming 

 a sort of inclined plane, down which his faggots descend by their 

 own gravity to the sea shore. Yonder troop of asses is laden with 

 lime, burnt on the top of this mountain. Cast your eyes to the N. K. 

 and look down on the plain of Paestum, with its gigantic ruins; once 

 a fertile and populous district, but now a luxuriant wilderness. 

 Far to the eastward, promontories are seen receding from each other, 

 from Amalfi along the gulf of Salerno. The eye delights to linger 

 on the bird's-ei,e view about Sorrento, Cape Campanella, and the 

 Island of Capri, the solitary and sensual retreat of the Emperor 

 Tiberius; the ruins of whose Palace still crown its summit; hun- 

 dreds of ships, barks and boats traverse the bay of Naples : while far 

 out at sea, the horizon seems to kiss the sky and the top of Stromboli 

 (the pharos of the Tuscan Sea) is just seen peering out of the water, 

 and capped with a dark round cloud of condensed vapours from its 

 own ever active volcano. Sis BAD. 



