against a blue sea, misty-deep. The walls here are not unfrequently
adorned with basreliefs of Carrara marble--saints and madonnas very
delicately wrought, as though they were love-labours of sculptors who
had passed a summer on this shore. San Terenzio is soon discovered low
upon the sands to the right, nestling under little cliffs; and then
the high-built castle of Lerici comes in sight, looking across, the bay
to Porto Venere--one Aphrodite calling to the other, with the foam
between. The village is piled around its cove with tall and
picturesquely coloured houses; the molo and the fishing-boats lie just
beneath the castle. There is one point of the descending carriage road
where all this gracefulness is seen, framed by the boughs of olive
branches, swaying, wind-ruffled, laughing the many-twinkling smiles of
ocean back from their grey leaves. Here _Erycina ridens_ is at home.
And, as we stayed to dwell upon the beauty of the scene, came women
from the bay below--barefooted, straight as willow wands, with
burnished copper bowls upon their heads. These women have the port of
goddesses, deep-bosomed, with the length of thigh and springing ankles
that betoken strength no less than elasticity and grace. The hair of
some of them was golden, rippling in little curls around brown brows
and glowing eyes. Pale lilac blent with orange on their dress, and
coral beads hung from their ears.

At Lerici we took a boat and pushed into the rolling breakers.
Christian now felt the movement of the sea for the first time. This
was rather a rude trial, for the grey-maned monsters played, as it
seemed, at will with our cockle-shell, tumbling in dolphin curves to
reach the shore. Our boatmen knew all about Shelley and the Casa
Magni. It is not at Lerici, but close to San Terenzio, upon the south
side of the village. Looking across the bay from the molo, one could
clearly see its square white mass, tiled roof, and terrace built on
rude arcades with a broad orange awning. Trelawny's description hardly
prepares one for so considerable a place. I think the English exiles
of that period must have been exacting if the Casa Magni seemed to
them no better than a bathing-house.

We left our boat at the jetty, and walked through some gardens to the
villa. There we were kindly entertained by the present occupiers,
who, when I asked them whether such visits as ours were not a great
annoyance, gently but feelingly replied: 'It is not so bad now as it