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burst on me again, and broke most pleasantly this transient illusion, which had been thrown over my excited imagination by the dimly-lighted, gloomy streets.

We swept around the Chiatamone into the stately, calm Chiaja, and on up to the Mergellina, where, at three o'clock of this lovely moonlight morning, we routed up our pretty, good-natured portière, feeling very willing, not only to rest our weary bodies, but repose our brains, which had been so stimulated by the sublime sight as to be overcharged with nervous fluid even to painfulness.

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THREE DEAD CITIES.

NOTICE, on looking over my journal, that I have not recorded one half of the wonderful things which I have been seeing and learning.

On first arriving I gave conscientiously the history of everything which I saw; but this industrious spirit has left me. Churches, cities of the dead, ruins, all the marvellous spots which then stood out so boldly to be noticed, have fallen back under the haze of enjoyment which envelops everything in this lovely place, one's self, one's actions, and one's associates.

Goethe said well of Naples: "You forget yourself and the world here, in going about with persons who think of nothing but of being happy." In Italy we soon grow acclimated in spirit as well as in body, and learn to prefer, as the Italian does, this life of sensation, ease, and pleasure to one of thought and mental labor.

Every cause of annoyance, too, appears to be with drawn from me; it is as if I stood on charmed ground. Even the dreaded letters do not arrive, and I have not felt for months that sharp heart-click which the sight of home writing causes me. Home! what bitter irony and sorrow there is sometimes in that little word. Yes, I seem protected, as by some sweet enchantment, from the power of the dread angel Ahrim, whose triple scourge of

Darkness, Misery, and Death I have so often felt. I "hide my life" in a luxurious, happy dream.

Philip also repeats Goethe: "Naples is a paradise; in it every one lives in a sort of self-forgetfulness. I scarcely know myself; I seem quite an altered being; and I say, 'Either I have always been mad or I am so now.'”

Lately I have been visiting various celebrated places. in the neighborhood of Naples, making short excursions. which have taken only a day for the jaunt. One of these pleasant journeys was to Amalfi. We went by rail to La Cava; there we took carriages and drove to Amalfi. This drive made a strong impression on me, for Nature showed itself so luxuriant and lovely in the foliage of the trees, the vast quantities of beautiful flowers, and the enchanting coloring of the mountains and sea; then the picturesque character of the villages scattered about added a great deal to the peculiar charm of the landscape.

The mountains were covered with chestnuts and oaks to their very summits, and were fronted by a secondary line of hills, on which rose up orange- and olive-trees; sometimes these hills were terraced, and bore various kinds of grain, whose different shades made them look like strips of brilliant-hued cloth or velvet rolled out on the hill summits. Garlands of the vine, laden with clusters of young grapes, hung in graceful festoons from the branches of the filbert, fig, and other fruit- and nut-trees. Then came a succession of cool-looking recesses in these luxuriant hills, little dells intersected by deep ravines, which were covered with rich foliage close down to the margin of a hurrying stream, or the garden edge of a peasant's home, clusters of picturesque houses, while here and there peeped out a delizia, or villa, as if to look us a welcome. Now all this scene must be colored with the

entrancing atmospheric hue which is only to be found in Southern Italy, and the flashing sea introduced to give life to its loveliness.

It was quite late in the morning when our carriages approached Amalfi. There lay the beautiful gulf with the mountains rising up, shutting off the snow-white town from the interior; and as I noticed this, I remembered what I had read long ago in Mitford's Greece, that "Amalfi had always been subjected to the local disadvantages of being situated so as to be excluded from the neighboring country by a range of very difficult mountains." But its situation is fine for landscape beauty; there is a deep mountain gorge, a torrent dashing into the gulf, and the old dowager duchess of a city lies there mouldering on the coast.

Amalfi ! I looked at the poor little ruined place while our donkeys clambered up and down the streets, which are forever mounting and descending, and it seemed hardly possible to me that this dilapidated collection of strange looking old houses could ever have been a great seaport, the Athens of the Middle Ages, the rival of Venice!

It was once a successful republic which coined its own money; had extensive commerce; owned streets and quarters in far-off great cities, factories in Constantinople and Bagdad, and before the time of the Crusaders had a church and convent in Jerusalem for pilgrims: but it went to sleep many hundred years ago. Magnetica Amalfi ! It gave to the world the mariner's compass, and during the Crusading wars the proud Amalfitan standard was emblazoned with the compass cross.

At last, man and the sea overpowered this bold, busy little republic. Bloody battles and fearful engulfings

laid it low; and now nothing remains, not even ruins, of the once crowded quays and arsenals: for the plashing waters of the gulf ride as proudly over them as Amalfitan navies once did on the haughty and destroying breast of the glittering, treacherous sea.

I had not as much satisfaction as usual in the Almafi visit; the party was too large and gay, and Philip and Luigi were not with us. The whole affair was confused and bustling. We were a merry, noisy set, with more curiosity than reverence, and more quick-witted cleverness than information; but I will not be ungracious, for a great deal of care and indeed expense was generously given and incurred by the hospitable planners of the jaunt.

We first visited the Cathedral, a Saracenic building, with a joyful looking campanile, and gay-tiled cupolas and domes. St. Andrew the Apostle is buried in the crypt. Once this cathedral was a favorite resort for pilgrims; St. Francis of Assisium visited it, and many other holy persons; a wonderful miracle was here vouchsafed to the faithful in those believing days, but it is still and dead now!

Some members of our gay party hunted up two famous sarcophagi, one of which was found built into the wall of the church; and they traced with great interest in the fine bas-relief adorning it a classic legend, the Rape of Proserpine. Others gathered admiringly around the great bronze doors of the cathedral, which are over a thousand years old; they were made by some Byzantine artist, when Amalfi was still young and powerful; they have Latin inscriptions in silver letters, telling that one Panteleone di Maura erected them in honor of St. Andrew and for his own soul's salvation.

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