90 TKAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



there are other perplexities of choice, since the tree 

 at one side of you bears the compact little mandarins, 

 with their peculiar fragrance and invariable sweet- 

 ness ; and on the other hang pale sweet lemons, 

 which you must eat for the name of the thing, though 

 the produce is less satisfactory ; and then there is the 

 citron, with the rind (which is the best of it) an inch 

 thick, filled with a meaningless pulp, which does not 

 count for much. These orange-gardens are walled in, 

 and have careful appliances for irrigation, which 

 indeed are common to all the cultivation of Capri ; 

 and some of them still preserve the reservoirs, built 

 large and deep, of the everlasting Eoman masonry, 

 which are as old as Tiberius whose name, by the 

 way, reminds us, lectore carissima, that by dint of 

 gossip about our friends and their mode of living, we 

 have delayed as yet our laAvful business as cicerone, 

 and have not taken you to see the sights. 



There are in Capri four lesser and one greater 

 height, between which lies all the habitable and 

 fertile part of the island. The highest mountain- 

 head is Monte Solaro, a towering mass of limestone, 

 on one side of which, on a larger shelf than usual, 

 lies among the clouds the village of Anacapri, already 

 mentioned ; and under the shelter of this great hill, 

 and defended east and west by the lesser heights, 

 occurs the valley, if it can be so called, or rather the 

 lower ridge, saddle-shaped, and sloping down to the 

 sea on both sides, in which Capri proper, with its 



