THE CITY OF MELBOURNE. 



their sea-faces, but clothed inland with a compact mass of ti-tree scrub, the roots of 

 which bind the soil together and consolidate its shifting particles. The long dark roofs 

 which emerge from the compact foliage on the north side of this barren promontory 

 belong to the Quarantine Station. Beyond these the coast-line advances for a while, 

 leaving a broader tract of country behind it, and then recedes, so as to form a succes- 

 sion of miniature bays, with an occasional villa residence gleaming out from the sombre 

 foliage, and a fine background of wooded hills. In one of these indentations is situated 

 the watering-place upon which some enthusiastic admirer of the spot has bestowed the 



SORRENTO. 



name of the fair Italian town in which the poet Tasso first beheld the light. Nor. 

 under certain aspects of the heavens, does it appear altogether unworthy to bear the 

 appellation, for sea and sky put on at times a robe of colour almost as intense in its 

 lovely azure as that which constitutes the glory of its beautiful prototype in the Bay of 

 Naples ; while Mount Martha and the more distant hills, when the atmospheric conditions 

 favour this phenomenon, are invested with the richest purple, chequered in places with 

 shadows of burnt umber and dark gray. 



Sorrento stands on the neck of the promontory, which is here not more than a mile 

 in width from sea to sea. A good road climbs over a ridge, from the summit of which 

 both the Bay and the ocean are visible. When the visitor gains the outer beach he 

 finds himself in view of two coves, resembling in outline one moiety of the figure eight 

 vertically bisected. Each is environed by tall cliffs, in which limestone lamina- thrust 

 themselves out from between layers of sand and gravel. Into these twin recesses the 

 sea comes tumbling and foaming with restless energy, slowly eating into the land, and 

 leaving here and there, in the midst of the gamboling " white horses," isolated masses 

 of rock, grotesque of form and grim of aspect, as trophies of its victorious invasion of 

 the opposing shore. The great transparent breakers pursue each other in endless chase, 

 and there is no pause in the sullen roar of the unslumbering waves, which deepens 



