Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/363

Rh which fling their branches, heavy with clusters of grapes, from one tree-top to another—all the natural produce of the sun-warmed, fertile earth. The grave olive-trees with their contorted stems, the dark pines, the lofty fig-trees and acacias, stand by the way-sides. The sea shines in the splendor of its azure before the rocky terraces, based on “the caves of Ulysses,” along the shore, while the Bay of Naples, and the soft valley, from which its dwellings ascend, are seen from this point in the highest beauty.

We have found excellent quarters in the Hotel de la Campagne. We intended, in the first instance, only to avail ourselves of it provisionally, but the spacious and excellent rooms, with views on the one hand into an orange-grove, the fruit-laden branches of which almost enter our windows, and on the other into a large square; the quietness of the house, where we are the only guests; the order, the ready attention of the waiters, the clever and agreeable host and hostess, have decided us to remain here, because we could scarcely desire to be better off. The hotel has its own baths, where we bathe every day in the clearest water upon a floor of the finest sand, and this bath is the greatest pleasure of the day. The Princess Elsa, hitherto a little depressed by the late occurrence, has here become herself again, and leaps and dances on the soft sand floor, as lightly and as gayly as ever did her namesake of Elsa-dale.

“And Hercules?”—I will wager any thing, my R——, that it is you who full of curiosity ask this question. He accompanied us hither from Ischia. “The wind was excellent for Sorrento,” said my tall