4d 
On the steep hill-sides are seen, right up to the summit, 
terraces about eight feet broad, the terrace below supporting the 
one above by a wall six feet high. Making these terraces and 
cultivating the land is the arduous work of the peasantry. On 
these terraces are grown many of the roses, carnations, and other 
flowers we buy in our English markets. The women domestic 
servants are bright, alert, active, nimble, willing, strong, 
respectful. Each village has its public washing place. In some 
cases a stream has been diverted to provide this. The Italian 
peasant is musical by intuition. The church bells and the 
chimes of the clocks are all musical. On a Sunday evening, 
to hear the vesper bells in churches on the hills far away echoed 
from churches in the valleys full of plaintive air, this is, indeed, 
music, and stillness accompanied by sounds so soft and sweet 
charms even more than silence. 
The climate is in strong contrast to that of England. To sit 
in an Italian garden for afternoon tea in March, with flowering 
mimosa trees, fifteen feet high in the hedges, with oranges 
dropping from the trees at one’s feet ; to smell the odour of the 
useful absorbent and disinfectant, the eucalyptus; to note the 
peach tree in blossom ; to see the wealth of flowers in the gardens 
—huge stocks and freesia, the deep coloured anemone, the double 
violet, the rose, poppy, carnation, heliotrope, cyclamen, and 
marguerite, the narcissus of sulphur-yellow hue, the waxen 
tendrils of the lily of the valley, the hyacinth, rosetinted and lilac, 
mingled with the deep saffron of orchids and the fire of tulips— 
i.e., our summer flowers in the winter months :—this was a new 
and delightful experience. Nor could one help noting the palm 
trees covered with ivy wreaths and climbing smilax sprays, or 
the houses set in one vast pleasaunce of lemon, orange, and vine, 
and the gray olive glinting in the sunshine. On the mountains 
were strange contrasts. On the northern and eastern sides of the 
summit would be found snow; a few yards away, on the side 
facing south, the primrose, the cowslip, the crocus, and other 
spring flowers flourished in profusion. The Riviera owes much 
to Englishmen, who seem as it were to have rediscovered the 
manifold beauties and advantages of its sunny shores beneath 
the glittering vault of southern skies. 
Italy is still, as Addison styled it, classic ground. Its history 
is calculated to inspire; its language is that of music, of poetry, 
of chivalry. It is the scene of many of the finest plays of the 
greatest dramatists of our own.and other lands. Its literature 
can never lose its charm. About Italy there is an ancientness 
that never grows old. She is invested with the dignity of bygone 
times and the majesty of tradition. Yet, withal, she has an 
indestructible freshness and remains perennially young. 
