THE GTJENAED G-ROUP. 155 



ran rapidly to seaward down a long series of hanging 

 teri'aceSj commimicating by short flights of abrupt lad- 

 dery steps ; and after a descent which^ like that of the 

 well-known neighbouring Avernus, was too faciLe by half 

 — as the ascent had been slow and toilsome — found our- 

 self in a very few miautes at the base of the last rudi- 

 mentary scalinata^ and within a salmon-leap only of the 

 bay which was bubbling right under our feet. Follow- 

 ing the instructions received from the ' donna di casa,' 

 we turned abruptly to the rights saw a cleft some few 

 paces off, entered it, and in one mimite more emerged 

 suddenly into a gigantic and resounding cavern, delici- 

 ously cool, and no less grateful in its obscurity to the 

 aching eye-baUs and dizzy brain, than it was refreshiug 

 to the parched and fevered surface of the body. It would 

 be quite easy, by an accumulation of well-culled adjec- 

 tives, to express our pleasurable sensations and surprise 

 on first entering this imposing interior, but none we could 

 either find or forge, would probably convey to others any 

 weU-defined notion of the peculiar characteristics of this 

 cave. What, however, no dictionary of terms, though 

 ever so well conned and considered, could possibly effect 

 in the reproduction of the marvellous hall to the reader's 

 eye, one single epithet describes so thoroughly, that, after 

 it, aU others may be safely dismissed as incommensurate, 

 or omitted as wholly superfluous) it was, in a word, a 

 Virgilian cave ! Virgilian in all its accessories ; and so 

 lively were the first impressions it conveyed to Our senses, 

 and the feelings and associations which these in turn 

 conjured up, that, as vision began to return, and the eye 

 to accommodate itself to distant objects, we half expected 

 to see Dido and the ' pious ^neas ' sitting clandestinely 

 in the cool twilight : haply to surprise the great Queen 

 of Carthage sighing behind one of its retired nooks, 

 or to hear the soft thrilling sonorous hexameters of that 

 gay deceiver, the plausible hero of Troy, rising in deep 



