Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/74

 the harbour, where the waters were shallow, turgid, almost stagnant, choked with weed and sand, although, beyond, the Ligurian sea, blue as turquoise in some lights, blue as lapis lazuli at others, sometimes rose in fretted turbulence, and sometimes rolled in a sullen swell.

A little way inland the moors began; in grand level stretches of gorse and brushwood, covering many a buried tomb, and buried town, with the lentiscus and the rosemary waving above them. Nigh at hand were dark lines of pine forests, although their balsamic scent and resinous breath could not purify the miasma of the coast, and eastward were the still wild and scarce-trodden woodlands, stretching away to the mountain-ranges where the robber had made his lair. But wood and hill were all too far away to alter the weary monotony of the scene at Santa Tarsilla. It seemed all shore—pale barren shore; and shallow sea—sea which yet drowned so many that it seemed to the people like a graveyard.

On a narrow tongue of sandy land there was a little fort; sickly soldiers came there and guards to watch the coast. There was also a furnace-house to make the salt that was