ngery, well watered by many artificial rillets, and from the midst
of the orange and lemon trees there emerges a path leading to the
entrancing _bosco_, or grove, that fills the deep hollow space formed by
the sheltering cliffs behind. It was mid-winter, as we have said, yet pink
cyclamens and strong-scented double narcissi were blooming freely, whilst
from the dark boughs of the ilex trees overhead there fell upon the ear
the pleasant twittering of innumerable birds, for happily the cruel snare
and the gun are strictly forbidden in this sacred spot, so that his
"little sisters, the birds," that the gentle Saint of Assisi loved so
tenderly, can still sing their songs of innocence and build their nests in
peace amidst the trees that no longer remain the property of the great
humanitarian Order. At nightfall this garden is almost equally beautiful
beneath a star-lit sky and with the many lamps of the town below throwing
long bars of yellow light upon the placid waters of the Bay. As we pace
the long terrace, wrapped in the glory of a million stars and revelling in
the exalted yet fairy-like loveliness of the scene around us, we perceive
the mellow night air to be redolent of a strange but fascinating perfume.
It is the _olea fragrans_, the humble inconspicuous oriental shrub that
from its clusters of tiny white flowers is thus giving out its secret soul
at the falling of the night dews, and permeating the whole garden with its
marvellous floral incense. But if the star-lit, flower-scented nights of
Amalfi are to be accounted as exquisite memories, how much more glorious
and exhilarating is the rising of the sun, as he appears in full majesty
of crimson and gold above the classic hills that overlook Paestum to the
east! Leaning at early dawn from the windows of the Cappuccini, we have
watched the sky flush at the first caress of "rosy-fingered Eos" and seen
the fragment of the waning moon turn to silver at the approach of the
burning God of Day, still tarrying behind the lofty barrier of the capes
and mountains of the Lucanian shore.

"Slowly beyond the headlands comes the day,
Though moon and planet on a sky of gold,
Chequered with orange and vermilion-stoled,
Have floated long before the sun's first ray
Has shot across the waters to display
Amalfi in her dotage; as of old
His beams lit up her splendours manifold,
Her quays and palaces that fringed the bay.
His smile makes every barren hill-side blush