but to follow a narrow
goat-track leading across slopes covered with coarse grass and some low
thickets of stunted lentisk and myrtle. The rosemary too grows plentifully
on the dry wind-swept soil, and the soft sea breeze wafts its refreshing
scent to our nostrils. There is a pretty legend of the people which
relates the cause of this plant obtaining its perfume of unearthly
sweetness:--how the Madonna one day hung the swaddling clothes of the
Infant Christ to dry upon a common pot-herb in the garden at Nazareth--the
rosemary is freely used in Italian cookery, and its taste is as unpleasant
as its scent is delicious--whereupon the humble plant thus honoured was
ever afterwards endowed with the delicate odour that is so highly prized.
And beyond this, the rosemary was likewise permitted to put forth masses
of flowers of the Madonna's own colour of blue, concerning which a
tradition--Celtic, not Italian--avers that on Christmas morning upon every
plant of rosemary will be found by those who care to seek them expanded
blooms in honour of St Joseph, the Virgin and the Holy Child. Reaching the
crest of the Solaro, we are well rewarded for our climb over the stony
slopes by a wide-spreading view. Owing to the central position of the
island, we can from its airy summit, some sixteen hundred feet above
sea-level, command a glorious panorama of the three bays of the Neapolitan
Riviera, each teeming with a thousand associations of classical or modern
history. Upon those dancing waters of the Bay of Naples appeared in the
dim ages of the heroic world the Trojan galleys that were bearing the
founder of the Roman race towards the beach by Cumae yonder, where dwelt
the venerable Sibyl; the fleets of ancient Rome and Carthage, the
war-ships of the great Emperor Charles V., the pirate galleys of the
Soldan's vassals, the men-of-war of Nelson have all rode and fought upon
the bosom of the bay beneath us. What a marvellous perspective of the
whole naval history of the Mediterranean does a survey of the Bay of
Naples suggest!

Exquisite and inspiring as is the view on a clear cloudless day, with the
keen _tramontana_ off the distant Abruzzi flecking the azure waves with
streaks of creamy foam and driving the white-sailed feluccas merrily
towards the open sea, the landscape is even more impressive in dull
lowering weather, when the inky clouds that envelop the sky give promise
of the approaching hurricane. At such times a striking phenomen