120 A SKETCH OF THE 



with brilliant-coloured tulips, producing a panorama never to be 

 forgotten. A thrush in an orange tree was trying to drown the 

 distant murmur of the waves, and the sighing of the wind through 

 the horsetail leaves of the casuarina trees produced a mysterious 

 dreamy feeling which made my companion subsequently, not with- 

 out reason, exclaim, " I have been in heaven." But there is only 

 one step from the sublime to the ridiculous. An old lady with two 

 daughters was also visiting the garden, and in no measured terms 

 she was instructing them in botany. " Here you see," she cried, 

 " my dears, is the aloe, which flourishes once only in a hundred 

 years. There," pointing to the eucalyptus tree, " you have the 

 gum tree, from which our gum arable is made; and there," directing 

 their attention to a casuarina tree, " you see the asparagus of 

 Australia." 



The day hitherto had been beautiful and clear ; but now the clouds 

 which had been gathering over the mountain-tops were spreading 

 out towards the sea, and a cold wind swept down the valley, raising 

 clouds of dust. By the time we reached Bordighera the sea was 

 white with foam, and we witnessed one of those mimic tempests 

 which have blown over many a sail, and which cost the life of 

 Shelley. 



At the neighbouring headland some men were erecting a platform 

 near the sea, in order to watch for Tunnies, those huge fish whose 

 migration from the Atlantic Ocean into the warm waters of the 

 Mediterranean is as regular now as it was 2000 years ago. This 

 may have been the very spot where the love-sick swain mentioned 

 by Theocritus is supposed to have intended hurling himself: 



'n-Trep TO)? 0ui/i/G)9 a-KOTTM^erat "OXirtf 6 'ypnrevfi * 



* "(I will cast off my coat of skins and into yonder waves I will spring,) where the fisher Olpis watches for 

 the Tunny-shoals." {Andrew Lang's Translation.) 



More than two thousand years after the time when Olpis was watching, the Rev. J. G. Wood writes of the 

 Tunny, " This magnificent, and most important fish, does not visit our shores in sufficient numbers to be of any 

 commercial value ; but on the shores of the Mediterranean, where it is found in very great abundance, it forms 

 one of the chief sources of wealth to the sea-side population. 



" In May and fune the Tunnies move in vast shoals along the shores, seeking for suitable spots wherein to 

 deposit their spawn. As soon as they are seen on the move, notice is given by a sentinel, who is constantly 

 watching from some lofty eminence, and the whole population is at once astir, preparing nets for the capture, 

 and salt and tubs for the curing of the expected fish." 



