er blocks of rock and
stone, and rendered them harmless.

CASTELLAMARE AND SORRENTO[11]

BY HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE

The sky is almost clear. Only above Naples hangs a bank of clouds, and
around Vesuvius huge white masses of smoke, moving and stationary. I
never yet saw, even in summer at Marseilles, the blue of the sea so
deep, bordering even on hardness. Above this powerful lustrous azure,
absorbing three-quarters of the visible space, the white sky seems to be
a firmament of crystal. As we recede we obtain a better view of the
undulating coast, embraced in one grand mountain form, all its parts
uniting like the members of one body. Ischia and the naked promontories
on the extreme end repose in their lilac envelop, like a slumbering
Pompeiian nymph under her veil. Veritably, to paint such nature as this,
this violet continent extending around this broad luminous water, one
must employ the terms of the ancient poets, and represent the great
fertile goddess embraced and beset by the eternal ocean, and above them
the serene effulgence of the dazzling Jupiter.

We encounter on the road some fine faces with long elegant features,
quite Grecian; some intelligent noble-looking girls, and here and there
hideous mendicants cleaning their hairy breasts. But the race is much
superior to that of Naples, where it is deformed and diminutive, the
young girls there appearing like stunted, pallid grisets. The railroad
skirts the sea a few paces off and almost on a level with it. A harbor
appears blackened with lines of rigging, and then a mole, consisting of
a small half-ruined fort, reflecting a clear sharp shadow in the
luminous expanse. Surrounding this rise square houses, gray as if
charred, and heaped together like tortoises under round roofs, serving
them as a sort of thick shell.

On this fertile soil, full of cinders, cultivation extends to the shore
and forms gardens; a simple reed hedge protects them from the sea and
the wind; the Indian fig with its clumsy thorny leaves clings to the
slopes; verdure begins to appear on the branches of the trees, the
apricots showing their smiling pink blossoms; half-naked men work the
friable soil without apparent effort; a few square gardens contain
columns and small statues of white marble. Everywhere you behold traces
of antique beauty and joyousness. And why wonder at this when you feel
that you have the divine vernal sun for a companion, and on the right,
whenever you tur