ri, the primitive
village of that name, hidden from view here; the medieval castle of
Barbarossa, which hangs over a frightful precipice; and the height of
Monte Solaro. The island is everywhere strewn with Roman ruins, and with
faint traces of the Greeks.

Capri turns out not to be a barren rock. Broken and picturesque as it
is, it is yet covered with vegetation. There is not a foot, one might
say a point, of soil that does not bear something; and there is not a
niche in the rock, where a scrap of dirt will stay, that is not made
useful. The whole island is terraced. The most wonderful thing about
it, after all, is its masonry. You come to think, after a time, that the
island is not natural rock, but a mass of masonry. If the labor that has
been expended here, only to erect platforms for the soil to rest on,
had been given to our country, it would have built half a dozen Pacific
railways, and cut a canal through the Isthmus.

But the Blue Grotto? Oh, yes! Is it so blue? That depends upon the time
of day, the sun, the clouds, and something upon the person who enters
it. It is frightfully blue to some. We bend down in our rowboat, slide
into the narrow opening which is three feet high, and passing into the
spacious cavern, remain there for half an hour. It is, to be sure,
forty feet high, and a hundred by a hundred and fifty in extent, with
an arched roof, and clear water for a floor. The water appears to be as
deep as the roof is high, and is of a light, beautiful blue, in contrast
with the deep blue of the bay. At the entrance the water is illuminated,
and there is a pleasant, mild light within: one has there a novel
subterranean sensation; but it did not remind me of anything I have
seen in the "Arabian Nights." I have seen pictures of it that were much
finer.

As we rowed close to the precipice in returning, I saw many similar
openings, not so deep, and perhaps only sham openings; and the
water-line was fretted to honeycomb by the eating waves. Beneath the
water-line, and revealed here and there when the waves receded, was a
line of bright red coral.

THE STORY OF FIAMMETTA

At vespers on the fete of St. Antonino, and in his church, I saw the
Signorina Fiammetta. I stood leaning against a marble pillar near the
altar-steps, during the service, when I saw the young girl kneeling on
the pavement in act of prayer. Her black lace veil had fallen a little
back from her head; and there was something in her mode