ompensating
in some measure for the lack of those associations which render the
outlook over a wide extent of populated land so thrilling. The emergence
of towered cities into sunlight at the skirts of moving shadows, the
liquid lapse of rivers half disclosed by windings among woods, the
upturned mirrors of unruffled lakes, are wanting to the sea. For such
episodes the white sails of vessels, with all their wistfulness of going
to and fro on the mysterious deep, are but a poor exchange. Yet the
sea-lover may justify his preference by appealing to the beauty of
empurpled shadows, toned by amethyst or opal or shining with violet
light, reflected from the clouds that cross and find in those dark
shields a mirror. There are suggestions, too, of immensity, of liberty,
of action, presented by the boundless horizons and the changeful
changeless tracts of ocean which no plain possesses.

It was nigh upon sunset when we descended to Ana-Capri. That evening the
clouds assembled suddenly. The armistice of storm was broken. They were
terribly blue, and the sea grew dark as steel beneath them, till the
moment when the sun's lip reached the last edge of the waters. Then a
courier of rosy flame sent forth from him passed swift across the gulf,
touching, where it trod, the waves with accidental fire. The messenger
reached Naples; and in a moment, as by some diabolical illumination, the
sinful city kindled into light like glowing charcoal. From Posilippo on
the left, along the palaces of the Chiaja, up to S. Elmo on the hill,
past Santa Lucia, down on the Marinella, beyond Portici, beyond Torre
del Greco, where Vesuvius towered up aloof, an angry mount of
amethystine gloom, the conflagration spread and reached Pompeii, and
dwelt on Torre dell'Annunziata. Stationary, lurid, it smouldered while
the day died slowly. The long, densely populated sea-line from Pozzuoli
to Castellammare burned and smoked with intensest incandescence, sending
a glare of fiery mist against the threatening blue behind, and fringing
with pomegranate-coloured blots the water where no light now lingered.
It is difficult to bend words to the use required. The scene in spite of
natural suavity and grace, had become like Dante's first glimpse of the
City of Dis--like Sodom and Gomorrah when fire from heaven descended on
their towers before they crumbled into dust.

FROM CAPRI TO ISCHIA.

After this, for several days, Libeccio blew harder. No boats could leave
or c