th an
opening towards the southwest. The northeast side of this, with Naples
in the right-hand corner, looking seaward and Castellamare in the
left-hand corner, at a distance of some fourteen miles, is a vast rich
plain, fringed on the shore with towns, and covered with white houses
and gardens. Out of this rises the isolated bulk of Vesuvius. This
growing mountain is manufactured exactly like an ant-hill.

The northwest side of the bay, keeping a general westerly direction,
is very uneven, with headlands, deep bays, and outlying islands. First
comes the promontory of Posilipo, pierced by two tunnels, partly natural
and partly Greek and Roman work, above the entrance of one of which is
the tomb of Virgil, let us believe; then a beautiful bay, the shore of
which is incrusted with classic ruins. On this bay stands Pozzuoli, the
ancient Puteoli where St. Paul landed one May day, and doubtless walked
up this paved road, which leads direct to Rome. At the entrance, near
the head of Posilipo, is the volcanic island of "shining Nisida," to
which Brutus retired after the assassination of Caesar, and where he
bade Portia good-by before he departed for Greece and Philippi: the
favorite villa of Cicero, where he wrote many of his letters to Atticus,
looked on it. Baiae, epitome of the luxury and profligacy, of the
splendor and crime of the most sensual years of the Roman empire, spread
there its temples, palaces, and pleasure-gardens, which crowded the low
slopes, and extended over the water; and yonder is Cape Misenum, which
sheltered the great fleets of Rome.

This region, which is still shaky from fires bubbling under the thin
crust, through which here and there the sulphurous vapor breaks out, is
one of the most sacred in the ancient world. Here are the Lucrine Lake,
the Elysian Fields, the cave of the Cumean Sibyl, and the Lake Avernus.
This entrance to the infernal regions was frozen over the day I saw it;
so that the profane prophecy of skating on the bottomless pit might have
been realized. The islands of Procida and Ischia continue and complete
this side of the bay, which is about twenty miles long as the boat
sails.

At Castellamare the shore makes a sharp bend, and runs southwest along
the side of the Sorrentine promontory. This promontory is a high, rocky,
diversified ridge, which extends out between the bays of Naples and
Salerno, with its short and precipitous slope towards the latter. Below
Castellamare, the moun