thing and awakening life; the noise made by the
waving of the branches of the pine above our heads and by the rattling of
its cones was overpowered by the music of a multitude of birds which sung
everywhere in the trees that surrounded us, and the cooing of the turtle-
doves was heard even more distinctly than the murmuring of the waves or
the whistling of the winds, so that in the strife of nature the voice of
love was predominant. With our hearts touched by this extraordinary
scene we descended to the ruins, and having taken at a farmhouse a person
who acted as guide or cicerone, we began to examine those wonderful
remains which have outlived even the name of the people by whom they were
raised, and which continue almost perfect whilst a Roman and a Saracen
city since raised have been destroyed. We had been walking for half an
hour round the temples in the sunshine when our guide represented to us
the danger that there was of suffering from the effects of malaria, for
which, as is well known, this place is notorious, and advised us to
retire into the interior of the temple of Neptune. We followed his
advice, and my companions began to employ themselves in measuring the
circumference of one of the Doric columns, when they suddenly called my
attention to a stranger who was sitting on a camp-stool behind it. The
appearance of any person in this place at this time was sufficiently
remarkable, but the man who was before us from his dress and appearance
would have been remarkable anywhere. He was employed in writing in a
memorandum book when we first saw him, but he immediately rose and
saluted us by bending the head slightly though gracefully; and this
enabled me to see distinctly his person and dress. He was rather above
the middle stature, slender, but with well-turned limbs; his countenance
was remarkably intelligent, his eye hazel but full and strong, his front
was smooth and unwrinkled, and but for some grey hairs, which appeared
silvering his brown and curly locks, he might have been supposed to have
hardly reached the middle age; his nose was aquiline, the expression of
the lower part of his countenance remarkably sweet, and when he spoke to
our guide, which he did with uncommon fluency in the Neapolitan dialect,
I thought I had never heard a more agreeable voice, sonorous yet gentle
and silver-sounded. His dress was very peculiar, almost like that of an
ecclesiastic, but coarse and light; and there was a large