s, monasteries,
and bridle-paths; and bases dotted, or rather lined, with towns and
villages. Here the mountain formation quits the margin of the bay,
following the coast southward or running into the interior of the
country; and the shore, sweeping round to the north and west, offers a
glimpse into a background of broad plain ere it meets a high, insulated,
conical mountain, which properly forms the head of the coast
indentation. The human eye never beheld a more affluent scene of
houses, cities, villages, vineyards, and country residences than was
presented by the broad breast of this isolated mountain, passing which a
wider view is obtained of the rich plain that seems to lie behind it,
bounded as it is by a wall of a distant and mysterious-looking, yet bold
range of the Apennines. Returning to the shore, which now begins to
incline more westwardly, we come to another swell of tufa, which has all
the characteristic fertility and abruptness of that peculiar formation,
a vast and populous town of near half a million of souls being seated,
in nearly equal parts, on the limits of the plain and along the margin
of the water, or on the hill-sides, climbing to their summits. From this
point the northern side of the bay is a confused mass of villages,
villas, ruins, palaces, and vines, until we reach its extremity, a low
promontory, like its opposite neighbor. A small island comes next, a
sort of natural sentinel; then the coast sweeps northward into another
and a smaller bay, rich to satiety with relics of the past, terminating
at a point some miles further seaward, with a high, reddish, sandy
bluff, which almost claims to be a mountain. After this we see two more
islands lying westward, one of which is flat, fertile, and more
populous, as is said, than any other part of Europe of the same extent;
while the other is a glorious combination of pointed mountains, thronged
towns, fertile valleys, castles, country houses, and the wrecks of
long-dormant volcanoes, thrown together in a grand yet winning
confusion. If the reader will to this description add a shore that has
scarce a foot that is not interesting with some lore of the past,
extending from yesterday into the darkest recesses of history, give life
to the water-view with a fleet of little latine-rigged craft, rendered
more picturesque by an occasional ship, dot the bay with countless boats
of fishermen, and send up a wreath of smoke from the summit of the
cone-like mount