hands, becomes baked through and
through, when the water-tanks are exhausted, and when the clouds of thick
dust hang like a pall of white smoke for miles above the sinuous course of
the Corniche road. How close and sweltering must be the atmosphere of
these populous coves, when the very waves are flung luke-warm upon the hot
sand! How must the inhabitants sigh for a breath of cool air from the
Abruzzi, for the zephyr that tempers the heat on the Sorrentine plain!
_Carpe diem_; let us enjoy the Costiera d'Amalfi in the freshness of early
spring-time, before the oranges and lemons have been stripped from the
leafy groves and before the sun has had time to scorch up the vegetation
that now gives colour to every cleft and crevice of the rocky coast-line.

As we advance eastward from Positano we obtain glimpses from time to time
of mountain valleys thickly clothed with brushwood, and far above our
heads we perceive Agerola perched aloft under the shadow of the topmost
crag of Monte Sant' Angelo--Agerola, where wolves still haunt the dim
recesses of the chestnut woods, and where the charcoal burners can tell us
of the great grey Were-Wolf that prowls round the village on stormy
nights. Passing the torrent of the Arriengo and the Punta di San Pietro
with its lonely chapel looking out to sea; glancing down upon the deep set
strand and gloomy caverns of Furore, and rounding Cape Sottile, we find
ourselves at Prajano, one of the prettiest spots to be found on all this
wonderful coast. Here we stop to visit the church of San Luca, which
stands on a little grassy platform overhanging the sea and commanding a
superb view of the Bay of Salerno. It is a baroque structure of the type
common everywhere in Italy, which travellers are apt to despise without
acknowledging how picturesque this decadent style of architecture can
appear. At Prajano the wooden doors of green faded to the hue of ancient
bronze, the yellow-washed plaster facade and the lichen-covered tiles of
the roof and tower make up a charming mass of varied colouring when viewed
against the broad blue band of sea and sky beyond. Within, the church is
mean and tawdry, just a

"Sad charnel-house of humble hopes and crimes,
Long dead and buried in obscurity;"

but the afternoon sun struggling through the curtains that cover its
fantastic windows allows a mellow light to fill the expanse of the
building. A toothless old woman and a young girl, both of them thinly and
poor