f hills, and on the headlands naval
stations, hospitals, lazzaretti, and prisons. A prickly bindweed (the
_Smilax Sarsaparilla_) forms a feature in the near landscape, with its
creamy odoriferous blossoms, coral berries, and glossy thorned leaves.

A turn of the road brought Porto Venere in sight, and on its grey
walls flashed a gleam of watery sunlight. The village consists of one
long narrow street, the houses on the left side hanging sheer above
the sea. Their doors at the back open on to cliffs which drop about
fifty feet upon the water. A line of ancient walls, with mediaeval
battlements and shells of chambers suspended midway between earth and
sky, runs up the rock behind the town; and this wall is pierced with a
deep gateway above which the inn is piled. We had our lunch in a room
opening upon the town-gate, adorned with a deep-cut Pisan arch
enclosing images and frescoes--a curious episode in a place devoted to
the jollity of smugglers and seafaring folk. The whole house was such
as Tintoretto loved to paint--huge wooden rafters; open chimneys with
pent-house canopies of stone, where the cauldrons hung above logs of
chestnut; rude low tables spread with coarse linen embroidered at the
edges, and laden with plates of fishes, fruit, quaint glass,
big-bellied jugs of earthenware, and flasks of yellow wine. The people
of the place were lounging round in lazy attitudes. There were odd
nooks and corners everywhere; unexpected staircases with windows
slanting through 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 obligate, '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