100 INTRODUCTION OF AGAV'R AND OPUNTIA. 



and Opuntias have been established here. Thus the spin^-, 

 glaucous Agaves and the prickh', vivid-green Opuntias, 

 which are so well adapted to the rock\- coast of Itah' 

 thal the\' seem to have been here from time immemorial, 

 were reall\' not introduced from America until the sixteenth 

 centur\-. It would be difficult to picture Capri without 

 the "Fichi dTndia" whose flattened branches grow over 

 all the walls in strange, contorted shapes — and vet they 

 are comparativeh' recent introductions. The Agaves and 

 Opuntias in tlie foreground of Preller's illustrations to 

 the Od\-sse\' are therefore an anachronism. This however 

 does not detract from the beaut}' of these pictures, though 

 one cannot escape a certain feeling of unfamiliarity when 

 looking at them. One's sense of historic accurac\' is 

 violated ; nevertheless these masterh- works of art appeal 

 strongh" to one's artistic instinct and imagination. 



What was the Riviera like before the 01i^'e was 

 cultivated, when there \\-erc no Palms or C\'presses and 

 no fragrant Agrumi perfumed the air? Evergreen 

 bushes clothed the slopes and thick pine \\oods crowned 

 the heights. The whole aspect of tlie vegetation must 

 have been totally different. For while it was characterised 

 b\' greater uniformity and the grouping of masses, the 

 landscape, now considered so t\-pically Italian, owes its 

 character to the great variet\' of conspicuous plants and 

 their effective distribution. 



In the time of Alexander the fjreat — in the fourth 

 centur\' B. C. — the Greeks considered Itah- to be quite 

 a primitive land compared with their own countr\' and 

 the Levant. But Marcus Terentius \'arro likened it in 



