, a sort of refined Swiss
scene,--high, bare steps of rock butting over a chasm, ruins, old
walls, vines, flowers. The very spirit of peace is here, and it is not
disturbed by the sweet sound of bells echoed in the passes. On narrow
ledges of precipices, aloft in the air where it would seem that a bird
could scarcely light, we distinguish the forms of men and women; and
their voices come down to us. They are peasants cutting grass, every
spire of which is too precious to waste.

We descend, and pass by a house on a knoll, and a terrace of olives
extending along the road in front. Half a dozen children come to the
road to look at us as we approach, and then scamper back to the house in
fear, tumbling over each other and shouting, the eldest girl making
good her escape with the baby. My companion swings his hat, and cries,
"Hullo, baby!" And when we have passed the gate, and are under the wall,
the whole ragged, brown-skinned troop scurry out upon the terrace, and
run along, calling after us, in perfect English, as long as we keep in
sight, "Hullo, baby!" "Hullo, baby!" The next traveler who goes that
way will no doubt be hailed by the quick-witted natives with this
salutation; and, if he is of a philological turn, he will probably
benefit his mind by running the phrase back to its ultimate Greek roots.

A DRY TIME

For three years, once upon a time, it did not rain in Sorrento. Not a
drop out of the clouds for three years, an Italian lady here, born in
Ireland, assures me. If there was an occasional shower on the Piano
during all that drought, I have the confidence in her to think that she
would not spoil the story by noticing it.

The conformation of the hills encircling the plain would be likely to
lead any shower astray, and discharge it into the sea, with whatever
good intentions it may have started down the promontory for Sorrento. I
can see how these sharp hills would tear the clouds asunder, and let out
all their water, while the people in the plain below watched them with
longing eyes. But it can rain in Sorrento. Occasionally the northeast
wind comes down with whirling, howling fury, as if it would scoop
villages and orchards out of the little nook; and the rain, riding on
the whirlwind, pours in drenching floods. At such times I hear the beat
of the waves at the foot of the rock, and feel like a prisoner on an
island. Eden would not be Eden in a rainstorm.

The drought occurred just after the expulsi