Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/359

Rh during the whole time, of that wonderfully beautiful, metallic blue, which almost induced one to take it up into one's hand to convince one's self that it was really nothing else but common sea-water. The waves gleamed in the sunlight like the polished facets of that immeasurable sapphire. The most interesting feature of the excursion was the distinct view which it afforded us of the island, which is, perhaps more than almost any other, benefited by human enterprise and industry. Sea-birds build in caves of the wildest and most naked rocks, and these are taken by watchful fowlers. You see also, in the face of almost perpendicular rocks, flights of steps hewn out, which lead to otherwise inaccessible places between the shore and the heights. Everywhere, wherever a little soil has collected itself in the clefts of the rocks, one sees tiny fields or vineyards. The whole island may be compared to a large, vine-covered hill.

The hot springs, which are found here in great numbers, seem to heighten the temperature of the soil and to maintain it in a state of constant fertility. The little hills, with which the island abounds, especially in the north and east, are gloriously verdant, even during the heat of summer, and have a luxuriant growth of laurels, myrtles, arbor vitæ, and broom. You see vineyards carried up almost to the very summit of Monte Epomeo. Up in this mountain, in caves, partly natural and partly the work of man, lives a hermit, of whose history romantic circumstances are related, but who, himself, has no longer a romantic appearance.

Several boats were lying on the sea, along the southern coast, belonging to the coral-fishers, who