shorter way between Naples and Puteoli; thence stretched an
extensive plain, set in a deep amphitheatre of hills, and bounded by
the sea. Vineyards and maizefields, pine-trees and poplars,
diversify its surface, and through the midst of it runs a long,
straight road, dwindling till it reaches the shore at the hamlet of
Bagnoli. Follow the enclosing ridge to the left, to where its slope
cuts athwart plain and sea and sky; there close upon the coast lies
the island rock of Nisida, meeting-place of Cicero and Brutus after
Caesar's death. Turn to the opposite quarter of the plain. First
rises the cliff of Camaldoli, where from their oak-shadowed lawn the
monks look forth upon as fair a prospect as is beheld by man. Lower
hills succeed, hiding Pozzuoli and the inner curve of its bay;
behind them, too, is the nook which shelters Lake Avernus; and at a
little distance, by the further shore, are the ruins of Cumae, first
home of the Greeks upon Italian soil. A long promontory curves round
the gulf; the dark crag at the end of it is Cape Misenum, and a
little on the hither side, obscured in remoteness, lies what once
was Baiae. Beyond the promontory gleams again a blue line of sea.
The low length of Procida is its limit, and behind that, crowning
the view, stands the mountain-height of Ischia.

Over all, the hues of an autumn evening in Campania. From behind a
bulk of cloud, here and there tossed by high wind currents into
fantastic shapes, sprang rays of fire, burning to the zenith.
Between the sea-beach at Bagnoli and the summit of Ischia, tract
followed upon tract of colour that each moment underwent a subtle
change, darkening here, there fading into exquisite transparencies
of distance, till by degrees the islands lost projection and became
mere films against the declining day. The plain was ruddy with dead
vine-leaves, and golden with the decaying foliage of the poplars;