We weighed anchor yesterday morning (the twentieth of June), and stood across the bay for Castellamare. Running close under Vesuvius, we passed Portici, Torre del Greco, and Pompeii, and rounded-to in the little harbour of this fashionable watering-place soon after noon. Castellamare is about fifteen miles from Naples, and in the summer months it is crowded with those of the fashionables who do not make a northern tour. The shore rises directly from the sea into a high mountain, on the side of which the king has a country-seat, and around it hang, on terraces, the houses of the English. Strong mineral springs abound on the slope.
We landed directly, and mounting the donkeys waiting on the pier, started to make the round of the village walks. English maids with their prettily dressed and rosy children, and English ladies and gentlemen, mounted, like ourselves on donkeys, met us at every turn as we wound up the shady and zigzag roads to the palace. The views became finer as we ascended, till we look down into Pompeii, which was but four miles off, and away toward Naples, following the white road with the eye along the shore of the sea. The paths were in fine order, and as beautiful as green trees, and shade, and living fountains, crossing the road continually, could make them. In the neighbourhood of the royal casino, the ground was planted more like a park, and the walks were terminated with artificial fountains, throwing up their bright waters amid statuary and over grottoes, and here we met the idlers of the place of all nations, enjoying the sunset. I met an acquaintance or two, and felt the yearning unwillingness to go away which I have felt on every spot almost of this “delicious land.”
We set sail again with the night-breeze, and at this moment are passing between Ischia and Capri, running nearly on our course for Sicily. We shall probably be at Palermo to-morrow. The ship’s bell beats ten, and the lights are ordered out, and under this imperative government, I must say, “good night!”
Baiæ—Grotto of Posilipo—Tomb of Virgil—Pozzuoli—Ruins of the Temple of Jupiter Serapis—The Lucrine Lake—Lake of Avernus, the Tartarus of Virgil—Temple of Proserpine—Grotto of the Cumæan Sybil—Nero’s villa—Cape of Misenum—Roman villas—Ruins of the Temple of Venus—Cento Camerelle—The Stygian Lake—The Elysian Fields—Grotto del Cane—Villa of Lucullus.