ugh the
thickness of the town-wall; pictures of saints; high-zoned serving
women, on whose broad shoulders lay big coral beads; smoke-blackened
roofs, and balconies that opened on the sea. The house was inexhaustible
in motives for pictures.

We walked up the street, attended by a rabble rout of boys--_diavoli
scatenati_--clean, grinning, white-teethed, who kept incessantly
shouting, "Soldo, soldo!" I do not know why these sea-urchins are so far
more irrepressible than their land brethren. But it is always thus in
Italy. They take an imperturbable delight in noise and mere annoyance. I
shall never forget the sea-roar of Porto Venere, with that shrill
obbligato, "Soldo, soldo, soldo!" rattling like a dropping fire from
lungs of brass.

At the end of Porto Venere is a withered and abandoned city, climbing
the cliffs of S. Pietro; and on the headland stands the ruined church,
built by Pisans with alternate rows of white and black marble, upon the
site of an old temple of Venus. This is a modest and pure piece of
Gothic architecture, fair in desolation, refined and dignified, and not
unworthy in its grace of the dead Cyprian goddess. Through its broken
lancets the sea-wind whistles and the vast reaches of the Tyrrhene gulf
are seen. Samphire sprouts between the blocks of marble, and in
sheltered nooks the caper hangs her beautiful purpureal snowy bloom.

The headland is a bold block of white limestone stained with red. It has
the pitch of Exmoor stooping to the sea near Lynton. To north, as one
looks along the coast, the line is broken by Porto Fino's amethystine
promontory; and in the vaporous distance we could trace the Riviera
mountains, shadowy and blue. The sea came roaring, rolling in with tawny
breakers; but, far out, it sparkled in pure azure, and the cloud-shadows
over it were violet. Where Corsica should have been seen, soared banks
of fleecy, broad-domed alabaster clouds.

This point, once dedicated to Venus, now to Peter--both, be it
remembered, fishers of men--is one of the most singular in Europe. The
island of Palmaria, rich in veined marbles, shelters the port; so that
outside the sea rages, while underneath the town, reached by a narrow
strait, there is a windless calm. It was not without reason that our
Lady of Beauty took this fair gulf to herself; and now that she has long
been dispossessed, her memory lingers yet in names. For Porto Venere
remembers her, and Lerici is only Eryx. There is a grotto he