y where it
issues from the underground recesses of our establishment; and there
stands a bust, in serious expectation that some one will walk out and
saunter down among the rocks; but no one ever does. Just at the right
is a little beach, with a few old houses, and a mimic stir of life, a
little curve in the cliff, the mouth of the gorge, where the waves come
in with a lazy swash. Some fishing-boats ride there; and the shallow
water, as I look down this sunny morning, is thickly strewn with
floating peels of oranges and lemons, as if some one was brewing a
gigantic bowl of punch. And there is an uncommon stir of life; for a
schooner is shipping a cargo of oranges, and the entire population is in
a clamor. Donkeys are coming down the winding way, with a heavy basket
on either flank; stout girls are stepping lightly down with loads on
their heads; the drivers shout, the donkeys bray, the people jabber
and order each other about; and the oranges, in a continual stream, are
poured into the long, narrow vessel, rolling in with a thud, until there
is a yellow mass of them. Shouting, scolding, singing, and braying, all
come up to me a little mellowed. The disorder is not so great as on
the opera stage of San Carlo in Naples; and the effect is much more
pleasing.

This settlement, the marina, under the cliff, used to extend along the
shore; and a good road ran down there close by the water. The rock has
split off, and covered it; and perhaps the shore has sunk. They tell
me that those who dig down in the edge of the shallow water find sunken
walls, and the remains of old foundations of Roman workmanship.
People who wander there pick up bits of marble, serpentine, and
malachite,--remains of the palaces that long ago fell into the sea, and
have not left even the names of their owners and builders,-the ancient
loafers who idled away their days as everybody must in this seductive
spot. Not far from here, they point out the veritable caves of the
Sirens, who have now shut up house, and gone away, like the rest of the
nobility. If I had been a mariner in their day, I should have made no
effort to sail by and away from their soothing shore.

I went, one day, through a long, sloping arch, near the sailors' Chapel
of St. Antonino, past a pretty shrine of the Virgin, down the zigzag
path to this little marina; but it is better to be content with looking
at it from above, and imagining how delightful it would be to push off
in one of th