n high hurl winds and clouds together,
Full glad is he and waiteth for fair weather.

Giuseppe led us down those curious volcanic _balze_, where the soil is
soft as marl, with tints splashed on it of pale green and rose and
orange, and a faint scent in it of sulphur. They break away into wild
chasms, where rivulets begin; and here the narrow watercourses made for
us plain going. The turf beneath our feet was starred with cyclamens and
wavering anemones. At last we reached the chestnut woods, and so by
winding paths descended on the village. Giuseppe told me, as we walked,
that in a short time he would be obliged to join the army. He
contemplated this duty with a dim and undefined dislike. Nor could I,
too, help dreading and misliking it for him. The untamed, gentle
creature, who knew so little but his goats as yet, whose nights had been
passed from childhood _a la belle etoile_, whose limbs had never been
cumbered with broadcloth or belt--for him to be shut up in the barrack
of some Lombard city, packed in white conscript's sacking, drilled,
taught to read and write, and weighted with the knapsack and the musket!
There was something lamentable in the prospect. But such is the burden
of man's life, of modern life especially. United Italy demands of her
children that by this discipline they should be brought into that
harmony which builds a nation out of diverse elements.

FROM ISCHIA TO NAPLES.

Ischia showed a new aspect on the morning of our departure. A sea-mist
passed along the skirts of the island, and rolled in heavy masses round
the peaks of Monte Epomeo, slowly condensing into summer clouds, and
softening each outline with a pearly haze, through which shone emerald
glimpses of young vines and fig-trees.

We left in a boat with four oarsmen for Pozzuoli. For about an hour the
breeze carried us well, while Ischia behind grew ever lovelier, soft as
velvet, shaped like a gem. The mist had become a great white luminous
cloud--not dense and alabastrine, like the clouds of thunder; but filmy,
tender, comparable to the atmosphere of Dante's moon. Porpoises and
sea-gulls played and fished about our bows, dividing the dark brine in
spray. The mountain distances were drowned in bluish vapour--Vesuvius
quite invisible. About noon the air grew clearer, and Capri reared her
fortalice of sculptured rock, aerially azure, into liquid ether. I know
not what effect of atmosphere or light it is that lifts an island from
th