ardens, put one in mind of a first-rate English
country-seat. The ornamental water is fetched, by an aqueduct worthy
of old Rome, from mountains seven miles off, first emptying its whole
charge over a high ledge of rock, making a waterfall (which you see
from the drawing-room window) over a series of steps and terraces,
which get wider as they get lower, till they terminate in a superb
basin within a quarter of a mile of the palace, where the water makes
its last bound, and forms a broad lake fit for Diana and her nymphs,
amidst woods fit for Actaeon and his dogs. Of course we asked to be
conducted to these stone terraces, over which the dash of the mountain
stream into the lake is effected: but as we passed the latter, we were
surprised by our guide approaching the water, and, beginning to
whistle, he begs us to observe the water begins to be troubled at a
distance, and the more he whistles the more the commotion increases.
Ten, twenty, and in half a second hundreds of _immense_ fish come
trooping up, and, undeterred by our presence, approach as near as they
dare to the surface of the water where he stands; they swim backwards
and forwards, and lash the water with their tails. What is the matter?
Why! they come to be fed! and such is the ferocious impatience of this
aquatic _menagerie_, that we long to assist in quelling it; and so we
dip our hand into the man's basket of frogs, and drop a few right over
the swarm--and now the water is bubbling and lathering with the
workings and plungings of these mad fish; and so large are they, so
strong, so numerous, that, all angler as we are, we really felt
unpleasantly, nor would we, after what we saw, have trusted hand or
foot in the domain of such shark-like rapacity. They consume five
basketsful of frogs and minnows a-day. Except that of the Caserta
beggars, we never saw any thing like the hunger of the Caserta fish.

THE SILK MANUFACTORY.

The silk manufactory at Caserta is worth a visit. The labour is
chiefly accomplished by the hand, as is all labour in Naples. Silk is
wound off into skeins by a mill turned by the artificial falls of the
aqueduct. At one extremity you see the unpromising _cocoons_; at the
other the most rare and beautiful velvets and _gros de Naples_. The
locality of this manufactory is delightful, and the old queen
preferred its comforts and cheerfulness to the solitary grandeur of
the palace in the plain. In place of occupying and paying the poor
rou