ately to Sicily. The
steam-boats at Naples, unlike the steam-boats every where else, start at
no fixed period. The captain waits for his contingent of passengers, and
till this has been obtained both he and his vessel are immovable. M.
Dumas and his companion, therefore, hired a small sailing vessel, a
_speronara_ as it is called, in which they embarked the next morning.
But before weighing anchor M. Dumas took from his portfolio the neatest,
purest, whitest, sheet of paper that it contained, and indited the
following letter to the Count de Ludorf:--

"Monsieur le Comte,

"I am distressed that your excellency did not think fit to
charge me with your commissions for Naples. I should have
executed them with a fidelity which would have convinced you of
the grateful recollection I retain of your kind offices.

"Accept, M. le Comte, the assurance of those lively sentiments
which I entertain towards you, and of which, one day or other,
I hope to give you proof.

"ALEX. DUMAS."

"Naples, 23d Aug. 1835."

With the crew of this _speronara_ we became as familiar as with the
personages of a novel; and, indeed, about this time the novelist begins
to predominate over the tourist.

On leaving the bay of Naples our traveller first makes for the island of
Capri. The greatest curiosity which he here visits and describes in the
_azure grotto_. He and his companion are rowed, each in a small skiff,
to a narrow dark aperture upon the rocky coast, and which appears the
darker from its contrast with the white surf that is dashing about it.
He is told to lie down on his back in the boat, to protect his head from
a concussion against the low roof.

"In a moment after I was borne upon the surge--the bark glided
on with rapidity--I saw nothing but a dark rock, which seemed
for a second to be weighing on my chest. Then on a sudden I
found myself in a grotto so marvellous that I uttered a cry of
astonishment, and started up in my admiration with a bound
which endangered the frail bark on which I stood.

"I had before me, around me, above me, beneath me, a perfect
enchantment, which words cannot describe, and which the pencil
would utterly fail to give any impression of. Imagine an
immense cavern, all pure azure--as if God had made a tent there
with some residue of the firmament; a surface of water so
limpid, so transparent, that you seem to float on