e sea, with a sort of aureole about it, an opalescence of haze and
sunshine. Nearer still, its aspect is almost terrible, a scene of
breath-taking precipices, spire-like mountains, wild black gorges,
ravines; but, to humanise it, you can count at least twenty villages,
villages clinging to every hillside, perched on almost every hill-top,
each with its group of cypresses, like sentinels, and its campanile.
At last you pass between two promontories, the Capo del Turco and the
Capo del Papa, from the summits of which two great Crucifixes look
down, and you enter the Laguna di Vallanza, a land-locked bay, tranquil
as a lake. And there, floating on the water as it seems, there is a
palace like a palace in Fairyland, a palace of white marble, all
stately colonnades and terraces, yet looking, somehow, as light as if
it were built of the sea's foam. This is one of the palaces--the
summer palace--of the Counts of Sampaolo. It seems to float on the
water, but it really occupies a tiny mite of an islet, called Isola
Nobile; and connected with Isola Nobile by marble bridges are two other
tiny Islets, laid out in gardens, Isola Fratello and Isola Sorella.
The Counts of Sampaolo are one of the most ancient and illustrious
families in Europe, the Valdeschi della Spina, descendants of San Guido
Valdeschi, a famous soldier-saint of the Twelfth Century. They have
another palace in the town of Vallanza, their winter palace, the
Palazzo Rosso; and a splendid old mediaeval castle, Castel San Guido,
on the hill behind the town; and two or three delightful villas in
different parts of the island. A highly enviable family, are they not?
Orange-trees are in blossom at Sampaolo the whole year round, in
blossom and in fruit at the same time. The olive orchards of Sampaolo
are just so many wildernesses of wild flowers: violets, anemones,
narcissus; irises, white ones and purple ones; daffodils, which we call
asphodels; hyacinths, tulips, arums, orchids--oh, but a perfect riot of
wild flowers. In the spring the valleys of Sampaolo are pink with
blossoming peach-trees and almond-trees, where they are not scarlet
with pomegranates. Basil, rosemary, white heather, you can pluck where
you will. And everywhere that they can find a footing, oleanders grow,
the big double red ones, great trees of them, such wonder-worlds of
colour, such fountains of perfume. The birds of Sampaolo never cease
their singing--they sing as joyously in December as in