Chapter 13

"If ever you have looked on better days,
If ever been where bells have knolled to church;
If ever sat at any good man's feast!
If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear,
And know what 'tis to pity, and be pitied,
Let gentleness my strong enforcement be."

SHAKESPEARE.

It is now necessary to advance the time, and to transfer the scene of
our tale to another, but not a distant, part of the same sea. Let the
reader fancy himself standing at the mouth of a large bay of some
sixteen or eighteen miles in diameter, in nearly every direction; though
the shores must be indented with advancing promontories and receding
curvatures, while the depth of the whole might possibly a little exceed
the greatest width. He will then occupy the spot of which we wish to
present to him one of the fairest panoramas of earth. On his right
stands a high, rocky island of dark tufa, rendered gay, amid all its
magnificent formations, by smiling vineyards and teeming villages, and
interesting by ruins that commemorate events as remote as the Caesars. A
narrow passage of the blue Mediterranean separates this island from a
bold cape on the main, whence follows a succession of picturesque,
village-clad heights and valleys, relieved by scenery equally bold and
soft, and adorned by the monkish habitations called in the language of
the country Camaldolis, until we reach a small city which stands on a
plain that rises above the water between one and two hundred feet, on a
base of tufa, and the houses of which extend to the very verge of the
dizzy cliffs that limit its extent on the north. The plain itself is
like a hive, with its dwellings and scenes of life, while the heights
behind it teem with cottages and the signs of human labor. Quitting this
smiling part of the coast, we reach a point, always following the
circuit of the bay, where the hills or heights tower into ragged
mountains, which stretch their pointed peaks upward to some six or seven
thousand feet toward the clouds, having sides now wild with precipices
and ravines, now picturesque with shooting-towers, hamlets, monasteries,
and bridle-paths; and bases dotted, or rather lined, with towns and
villages. Here the mountain formation quits the margin of the bay,
following the coast southward or running into the interior of the
country; and the shore, sweeping round to the north and west, offers a
glimpse into a background of broad plain ere it meets a high, insulated,
conical mountain, which properly forms the head of the coast
indentation. The human eye never beheld a more affluent scene of
houses, cities, villages, vineyards, and country residences than was
presented by the broad breast of this isolated mountain, passing which a
wider view is obtained of the