ial importance. It has one of the finest natural
harbors of the world; it has a beautiful and attractive adjoining
country in which to extend, indefinitely, its residence and trade
districts; it has the most enchanting fairyland of views that ever were
seen this side the ethereal world; it has an atmosphere of song and
story and a climate that is far from being objectionable. Naples is
seldom the possessor of a higher temperature in summer than is New York
or Boston; the winters are mild, and they offer weeks of sunny
loveliness when Rome is swept by the icy tramontana from the snow-clad
Alban hills. Naples offers, too, exceedingly good facilities for living;
the groups of excellent hotels, both on the terraces and on the water's
edge in the lower town and along the Villa Nazionale, offer every
comfort, and the politeness and courtesy of the Neapolitans, as a rule,
are among the alluring features of this enchanting city.

What shall be said of one hotel, especially, perched on the cliffs, to
which one ascends by an elevator, finding it the most luxurious
fairyland that imagination can conjure? Leaving the street one walks
through a marble tunnel lighted with electricity, wondering if he is,
indeed, in the grotto of the Muses. Entering a "lift" truly American in
its comfort and speed, he is wafted up the heights and steps out in--is
it paradise? Here is a large salon entirely of glass with an
incomparable view all over the gleaming bay, with Capri and Sorrento
shining fair on the opposite sides and Vesuvius, a purple peak, in the
near distance. The great city of Naples lies spread out below, with its
interior heights of Capodimonte and others. It is a view for which alone
one might well sail the four thousand miles of sea from the American
shores. Through open French windows one may step out on the terrace. If
it is cold he may still enjoy this sublimely wonderful view behind the
glass walls that reveal all its beauty and protect him from wind or
chill. Elsewhere adjoining salons stretch away, where sunshine, music,
reading matter, and dainty writing-desks allure the guest and create for
him, indeed, an earthly paradise.

Of the drive on the Strada Nuova di Posilipo, skirting the coast while
following the winding rise of the hill, with the sumptuous villas and
gardens on one side and the blue sea on the other,--what words can
suggest its charm? On a jutting promontory on the ruins of the Palazzo
di Donna Ana are seen th