House & Garden 
FROM THE TOP OF THE GARDEN 
A Winter Vie^w^ looking across the Pergola 
VILLA GASTELLO 
for a garden is more important than covered 
rooms, we will go out by the dining-room, 
which, like yours at Laurentium, “ though it 
stands away from the sea, enjoys the prospect 
of the garden which is just as pleasant.” 
From it, in one direction, we look through 
the branches — and blossoms, if it be the 
season—of the oleander-tree which grows 
out of the little court. On one side is the 
delicate bamboo, and beyond is a palm and 
an orange-tree whose principal function is to 
support a great Morning-Glory, with a 
Passion-Flower hotly contesting its primacy. 
From another side of the dining-room we 
look out, under a bower of jessamine, honey¬ 
suckle and Banksia roses, on a broad path 
ascending a gentle slope between laurel, fig, 
orange, lemon and plum-trees to where the 
columns of the pergola shine in the distance. 
From this path, other narrower paths di¬ 
verge,—some wild paths and some running 
with more formality between low retaining- 
walls. The boundary-walls of the garden 
are in the main hidden with orange, lemon 
and pomegranate-trees, as well as wistaria and 
other flowering vines, and beyond the south¬ 
erly wall we catch a glimpse of a wooded, 
castle-crowned hill, where in the barbarous 
ages the Capresi found refuge from the 
pirates,—in the castle, or in the great grotto 
beneath. 
Turning back towards the house we catch 
glimpses of various parts of it,—here a low 
terrace and there one high above the arches 
of a loggia, but not too high for the vines, 
as well as the Morning-Glory and Passion- 
Flower, to reach it. The roof is irregular 
but fiat, and bears many columns about which 
roses and various flowering creepers are 
growing, most of them from large earthen 
jars suitable for Ali-Baba and the Forty 
Thieves. From the roof you can best 
observe the giant pine-tree which dominates 
the garden, and the scarcely less lofty 
cypresses beyond ; or you will do better, 
perhaps, to climb to the columned terrace of 
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