think. For the portrait is painted in the French manner, and it is
hardly likely that a harem-lady would have been exhibited to a European
artist. The legend goes on to say that she was afterwards liberated by
the Knights of Malta, together with her Turkish son who, as was meet and
proper, became converted to Christianity and died a monk. The Beccarmi
family (of Siena, I fancy) might find some traces of her in their
archives. _Ben trovato,_ at all events. When one looks at the pretty
portrait, one cannot blame any kind of "Sultan" for feeling
well-disposed towards the original.

The weather has shown some signs of improvement and tempted me, despite
the persistent "scirocco" mood, to a few excursions into the
neighbourhood. But there seem to be no walks hereabouts, and the hills,
three miles distant, are too remote for my reduced vitality. The
intervening region is a plain of rock carved so smoothly, in places, as
to appear artificially levelled with the chisel; large tracts of it are
covered with the Indian fig (cactus). In the shade of these grotesque
growths lives a dainty flora: trembling grasses of many kinds, rue,
asphodel, thyme, the wild asparagus, a diminutive blue iris, as well as
patches of saxifrage that deck the stone with a brilliant enamel of red
and yellow. This wild beauty makes one think how much better the
graceful wrought-iron balconies of the town would look if enlivened with
blossoms, with pendent carnations or pelargonium; but there is no great
display of these things; the deficiency of water is a characteristic of
the place; it is a flowerless and songless city. The only good
drinking-water is that which is bottled at the mineral springs of Monte
Vulture and sold cheaply enough all over the country. And the mass of
the country people have small charm of feature. Their faces seem to have
been chopped with a hatchet into masks of sombre virility; a hard life
amid burning limestone deserts is reflected in their countenances.