A VISIT TO SALERNO.

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way between two little villages that lay scattered on either side below. The path to it wound and wound up and along the barren mass, until it finally dropped into the bosom of the church, whose bell, every Sabbath morning, woke the sleeping echoes around those villages to call their inhabitants to their mountain worship. A little farther on, we passed nearly over a village, the spires of whose churches barely rose to our carriage-wheels. Over the ravine that led into the town was a slender foot-bridge, from the farther end of which a narrow path commenced and went straggling up the hill, and finally dropping over the ridge, was lost from view. I inquired where it went, and was told to a little village perched on the farther side that looked down on the sea. A few more turns and the beautiful Bay of Salerno opened to view, blue, quiet and mild as heaven. Its natural beauties are almost, if not quite, equal to those of Naples. We had hardly driven into the yard of our hotel before the usual retinue of beggars was behind us.

In bargaining for our meals and rooms, everything was so reasonable that we could not complain; and for once I did not attempt to beat down the landlord. The entire arrangement of the prices was always left to me in travelling, and I had acquired quite a reputation in dickering with the thieving Italian landlords and vetturini. We made the man specify the dishes he would give us; and among other things he mentioned an English pudding. This required some discussion; but we finally concluded not to trust an Italian in Salerno with such a dish, and had its place supplied with something else. He promised enough; and I was turning away quite satisfied, when my friends slyly hinted at my principle, never to close a bargain with an Italian on his own terms. It wouldn't do to lose my reputation; and so turning round, I very gravely said :-"I suppose you will throw in the English pudding." He as gravely and with blandness replied: "Oh, yes." A peal of laughter closed the contract and we strolled out to see the town. The mountains rise directly over it, on the cragged summit of which stands an old fortress. Salerno is an old town, and once boasted one of the most celebrated Medical Schools of Italy. Its Cathedral also has some rich ornaments; but its great beauty is its Bay. We returned to our ho

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tel, and, sitting down on a balcony that overlooked it, drank in the fresh evening air, and feasted on the quiet beauty of the scene. The sun went down over Amalfi, pencilling with its last beams the distant mountains that curved into the sea beyond Pæstum. Along the beach, on which the ripples were laying their lips with a gentle murmur, a group of soldiers in their gay uniform was strolling, waking the drowsy echoes of evening with their stirring bugle-notes. The music was sweet; and at such an hour, in such a scene doubly so. They wandered carelessly along, now standing on the very edge of the sand where the ripples died, and now hidden from sight behind some projecting point where the sound confined, and thrown back, came faint and distant on the ear, till emerging again into view, the martial strain swelled out in triumphant notes till the rocks above and around were alive with echoes. It was a dreamy hour; and just then, as if on purpose to glorify the whole, the full moon rose up over the sea and poured its flood of light over the waters, tipping every ripple with silver, and making the whole beach, where the water touched it, a chain of pearls. One by one my friends had dropped away to their rooms till I was left alone. I felt that "night, most glorious night," was not sent for slumber. Every vagrant sound had ceased, except the very faint murmur of the swell on the beach. The grey old mountains were looking down on Salerno, and Salerno on the sea; and all was quiet as night ever is when left alone. And yet, quiet and peaceful as it was, it had been the scene of stirring conflicts. There were the moonbeams sleeping on the wall against which Hannibal had once thundered with his fierce Africans; and along that beach the wild war-cry of the Saracen had rung, and women and children lain in slaughtered heaps. But the bold Saracen and bolder African had passed away, while the sea and the rocks remained the same. I turned to my couch, not wondering the poets of the Augustan age sang so much and so sweetly of Salerno.

In the morning we rose with the sun and rattled off merrily for Pæstum, still twenty miles distant. For a while we passed through cultivated fields, in which were groups of Calabrian peasants, dressed just as Salvator Rosa has painted them. At length we entered on the long and pestiferous swamps, in the midst of

RUINS OF PESTUM.

10

which Pæstum stands, or rather stood. For miles and miles 1 was the same dead level, with nothing to relieve the eye but here and there a straw and mud hut, shaped like a bee-hive, in which the keepers live who watch the herds driven here to graze; and the herds of buffaloes themselves that roam over the plain. These buffaloes are wild-looking creatures, but tame as our farm-yard cattle. Each has its peculiar name, which it knows like a dog, and the overseer rides among them, calling to this and that, as a huntsman to his pack of hounds. We passed in sight of the Royal Chateau and Hunting-Grounds of Persano, which seemed the only fertile spot in sight.

At length the ancient Temples became visible in the distance, and gradually brightened as we approached, till they stood clear and well-defined in all their naked grandeur and fine proportions against the summer-sky. There are but three of them, Ceres, Neptune, and the Basilica, as it is termed. I had imaged to myself crumbling walls, falling arches, and masses of ruins. But all such fragments had long ago been melted by time into the common mass of earth; and these three naked, perfect skeletons are left standing alone. The roofs are fallen in, and yet you scarcely notice it till you enter them. They are all in the form of parallelograms, composed entirely of columns with their en

tablatures.

After wandering through them we went to a stream near by, whose petrifying qualities formed the stone from which the Temples were reared. It is called Travertine, and still lines the borders of the stream in immense quantities. The peasantry told me it still possessed this remarkable property, and that a cane left in it would in six months be converted into stone. We collected some curious specimens, and returned to the Temple of Neptune. Here, on the fragment of an old column, our servant had spread our "dejeuner ;" and the mysterious Past was forgotten in the strong demands of a keen appetite. After I had finished I threw a chicken-bone and an orange-peel to Neptune, and without waiting for the oracle's answer, prepared to depart. The clouds were fast gathering on the sky;-the wind was increasing, and here and there a drop of rain admonished us to hasten away. We reached here about dusk. The bells were gaily ringing, and

the town was illuminated, in honor of the birth of a Princess to the Queen of Naples. Lonely, exhausted, and weary, I think of you and home to-night, and the wide sea that rolls between us. But even you grow dim under the stronger claims of Somnus, and I throw down my pen to creep to my couch.

Truly yours.

Castellamare-The Italian-A Storm at Naples, &c

CASTELLAMARE, April, 1843.

DEAR E.-"Castellamare!"-it is quite a high-sounding name, and has doubtless once been an important stronghold, but it is now only a small town. It is interesting chiefly as the site of ancient Stabia, where once the torch of civil war, under Scylla, burned high and hotly. It seems impossible, as one stands on these vinecovered grounds of a bright spring-day and looks off on so quiet a scene, that war and havoc have once ploughed up the very rocks around. Yet it is true; and what the passions of men have left, Vesuvius has taken for its prey. The storm of fire and ashes that buried Pompeii stooped also on this town, and gave it a burial-place here upon the rocks that overlook the sea. An old castle still stands on the edge of the water, which once must have been impregnable. There are some mineral springs in the place, and other things of trifling importance which we did not see. The main object of interest was the view from the heights, which we mounted without the aid of donkeys, although pressed upon us with surprising liberality by their owners. At length, after toiling up a long ascent shaded by ilexes, and which Royalty never yet mounted on foot, we reached the Royal Villa, and passing it, went up, up, till we came to the "QUEEN's Place of Prospect." It was a beautiful view; and made, thank Heaven, not for a Queen, but for Man-for every man who has a soul to enjoy it. To him they belong by a "peculiar right." The sea lay below us, swept by a strong gale, against which, here and there, was a ship leaning to the blast and beating anxiously into port. Closer in stood two war vessels, clothed from mast-head to deck, in flags, gaily flaunting out in honor of the birth of another Prince,-while.