re, where an
inscription tells us that Byron once "tempted the Ligurian waves." It is
just such a natural sea-cave as might have inspired Euripides when he
described the refuge of Orestes in "Iphigenia."

VI.--LERICI.

Libeccio at last had swept the sky clear. The gulf was ridged with
foam-fleeced breakers, and the water churned into green, tawny wastes.
But overhead there flew the softest clouds, all silvery, dispersed in
flocks. It is the day for pilgrimage to what was Shelley's home.

After following the shore a little way, the road to Lerici breaks into
the low hills which part La Spezzia from Sarzana. The soil is red, and
overgrown with arbutus and pinaster, like the country around Cannes.
Through the scattered trees it winds gently upwards, with frequent views
across the gulf, and then descends into a land rich with olives--a
genuine Riviera landscape, where the mountain-slopes are hoary, and
spikelets of innumerable light-flashing leaves twinkle against a blue
sea, misty-deep. The walls here are not unfrequently adorned with
bas-reliefs of Carrara marble--saints and madonnas very delicately
wrought, as though they were love-labours of sculptors who had passed a
summer on this shore. San Terenzio is soon discovered low upon the sands
to the right, nestling under little cliffs; and then the high-built
castle of Lerici comes in sight, looking across the bay to Porto
Venere--one Aphrodite calling to the other, with the foam between. The
village is piled around its cove with tall and picturesquely-coloured
houses; the molo and the fishing-boats lie just beneath the castle.
There is one point of the descending carriage road where all this
gracefulness is seen, framed by the boughs of olive branches, swaying,
wind-ruffled, laughing the many-twinkling smiles of ocean back from
their grey leaves. Here _Erycina ridens_ is at home. And, as we stayed
to dwell upon the beauty of the scene, came women from the bay
below--barefooted, straight as willow wands, with burnished copper bowls
upon their heads. These women have the port of goddesses, deep-bosomed,
with the length of thigh and springing ankles that betoken strength no
less than elasticity and grace. The hair of some of them was golden,
rippling in little curls around brown brows and glowing eyes. Pale lilac
blent with orange on their dress, and coral beads hung from their ears.

At Lerici we took a boat and pushed into the rolling breakers. Christian
now felt the