ily bread amidst the vineyards and olive groves that
clothe the sun-baked slopes descending to the shore.

The intervening distance is not great between Ravello and La Scala, which
surmounts the opposite ridge of the valley of the Dragone, whence good
walkers can easily descend by the ancient mule track that leads down
direct to Amalfi by way of Scaletta. Like its neighbour and historic rival
across the valley, the annals and fortunes of Scala are closely interwoven
with those of Amalfi; and it was during the palmy days of the Republic
that this daughter-town reached its height of prosperity. Although the
tradition that once Scala possessed a hundred towers upon its walls and a
hundred and thirty churches is obviously exaggerated, yet it must have
been a place of importance even as early as 987, when Pope John XVI raised
it to the rank of a bishopric, an honour which did not fall to Ravello
until many years later. Early in the twelfth century Scala was pillaged by
the Pisans, but some years afterwards, when the mother city tamely
submitted to the demands of these Tuscan invaders without the smallest
effort at self-defence, the higher-spirited mountaineers of La Scala
manned their walls with skill and vigour, though without avail. The
hill-set city was ultimately carried by storm, and so thoroughly did the
enraged Pisans wreak their vengeance upon the place that Scala never again
rose to fame or eminence, but henceforward dwindled in wealth and size
until it finally sank to the condition of a large village, whilst Clement
VIII offered an additional indignity to the city in its dotage by
depriving it of episcopal rank. But though the citizens of modern Scala no
longer possess a bishop in their midst, they are still the proud
possessors and jealous guardians of the magnificent mitre presented by
Charles of Anjou, who was greatly pleased by the men and money that this
ancient town sent to aid his brother, St Louis of France, in his Crusade.
Some sculptured tombs, one of them a monument in honour of Marinella
Rufolo of Ravello, who was married to a Coppola of Scala, remain in the
churches to interest the curious traveller, but most visitors will find
the principal charm of this dilapidated little city in its lofty striking
situation beneath the frowning mass of Monte Cerrato.

But the sunset has come and gone, and the last tints of its rose-pink glow
are rapidly disappearing from the serrated line of mountain tops against
th