LIFE IX AX ISLAND. 107 



has grown into a wild and sweet thicket of myrtle 

 and arbutus, through which the path climbs and 

 winds amid such a flush of cistus-blossoms as were 

 never seen before. A little earlier the wood was 

 starred all over with cyclamens, and earlier still per- 

 fumed the very world with violets. You may still 

 have fragrance enough, if you crush under foot as 

 you pass by a handful of those abundant myrtle- 

 leaves. It is here our industrious friends, ever anxi- 

 ous to turn an honest penny, find the walking-sticks 

 which kind Santella sells but hereafter you shall 

 hear about Santella. In the meantime, let us brush 

 through the fragrant wood as far as the path will 

 take us. All this time have you not been regarding 

 with silent wonder and dismay the path which goes 

 forward so boldly, as if it meant to lead to somewhere, 

 and then all at once stops short before those scratches 

 on the face of the precipice 1 But do not be afraid ! 

 To be sure, the Gemini itself is less perpendicular ; 

 but you may be sure it is a practicable road, by which 

 the Eoman engineers of the imperial days scaled the 

 inaccessible height. It is wrong, however, to call it 

 a road, for it is, on the contrary, a great stair, five 

 hundred steps and more, turning from right to left, 

 and from left to right, in an endless series of sharp 

 angles, up which the ponies (without their riders, 

 however) clamber almost as nimbly as the women, 

 who carry up and down all that Anacapri needs of 

 provisions, and all the wood that is used in the lower 



