Sorrento

great tents of matting are visible, the rudely paved
path leads up a gradual incline, silent and deserted.
Like a serpent’s tail it winds on past blue-tiled shrines
and little dark rills of water, on and on, as if for ever.
Then suddenly the wall ends, and the great view which
follows us everywhere round the coast is again spread
before us, and always does it seem new and wonderfully
beautiful. Such a road leads from the market-place up
to Piccolo S. Angelo. Another leads from the high
road down towards the sea and to the gate of the Villa
Crawford, which stands on a jutting ledge of rock over
the water, and is hidden within a lovely garden. Great
twisted trees of wistaria shade the drive, and through
the leaves gleams a snow-white tennis-court with marble
steps leading up to it as to some Greek Gymnasium.
A lovely climb leads to S. Agata ai due Golfi, and so
on to the Deserta, the climax of all the Sorrentine views.
In the Church of S. Agata is an altar of Florentine
work, seventeenth century, in which are inlaid mother-
o’-pearl, lapis-lazuli, and ’giallo rosso e verde antico.
Then, too, how many a little path leads into the
heart of the orange country ! The whole history of
Sorrento is blended with the fruit. Think what a joy
was denied to Virgil, who had but the rose, the
immemorial vine, the sea-loving olive (which is said
never to die), to sing to. There was the citron, it is
true, which Pliny and the ancients seem to have con-
fused with the orange ; but the citron is in comparison
a sad fruit—more of an antidote to poison than a
delight, more tristis and tardis in its taste than
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