the steep ill-defined pathway
that leads ever upwards. As we slowly ascend through the sub-tropical
region of fig and vine, of olive and carouba, we question our guide, who
in spite of his bright eyes and well-knit frame seems about as intelligent
a companion as the poor ass left behind in the stall, where he is
enjoying, let us hope, an unexpected holiday. It is not easy to extract
information from our native attendant, yet with a little judicious
pressing we learn from him that the top of the mountain, which is our
bourne, was once inhabited by evil spirits, until a holy hermit took up
his abode on the peak, since when his sanctity has kept the place
tolerably clear of witches and foul incubi. Wicked sprites, however, still
haunt the spreading woods of beech and chestnut which we must presently
traverse, and our guide (whose name is Vincenzo) admits to us that he
would not care to venture there alone, even in broad daylight. There is,
he tells us, warming up at last to the subject, much gold hidden there,
which the spirits guard so jealously that they are ready to tear in pieces
any mortal who is clever enough to find and bold enough to rifle their
secret hoards. Only a priest, on account of his sacred office, is reckoned
safe from their iniquitous spells. "But has not any one dared," we ask,
"to go in company with a holy man, to search for this hidden treasure?"
Well, yes, he had been told that men from Vico had once ventured up into
the woods to search for the gold. With a little encouragement Vincenzo is
finally prevailed upon to give us the whole story, which is evidently of
somewhat recent date.

Once upon a time there were four men, one of them being a priest, who
lived in Vico, and one of these men had often been told by his father that
in the forests near the top of Monte Sant' Angelo there lay buried a chest
full of gold--_molto! molto!_ The father of the man had been himself in his
youth to search for the treasure, but find it he never could, for he would
never take a priest with him to avert the spells of the evil spirits of
the mountain sides, who kept the place hidden. So this time the man chose
two out of his friends, the boldest and the trustiest he could fix upon,
to accompany him, and at the same time he obtained the promise of a
cousin, who was a priest, to assist in the undertaking. All four made
their way up to the woods, and whilst the three men were digging and
searching, the priest continued to r