Morning journal and courier., 1890-05-10

of Salerno is had, with the far spires and
 domes of Salerno itself. Ciroling to the east and north, across a foreground of bluest wa ters and brightest sails, is seen marvellous ly beautiful shore, dotted by villa, hamlet, church and shrine, and then, around to the north, with Vesuvius ever sending forth It's threatening smoke above, lies the wonder
 fully entrancing region of the dead cities Castellammare, Pompeii and Herculaneum,
 the latter but a two hours' stroll from the splendid city which reaches even to 1t in
 thickly settled environs embowered in vines and flowers.
 Within this still standing almost complete circle of olden crater rim what majestic his- toric memories are awakened. There where tiny Capri, the ancients' 'island of goats,'
 receives against its headland walls the thun- der1ngs of the Mediterranean, Tiberius lay concealed nearly year after the fall of Se- janus; during the Napoleonic wars the island was taken by the English and fortified into another Gibraltar; and then retaken by @
 brilliant coup de main of the dashing Prince Murat. Sorrento, just around within the
 mainland gulf edge, the ancient Sutrentum
 of the Romans, is the birthplace of immor- tai Tasso, who after his glorious but inex-
 
 disguised as wandering shepherd, and was
 welcomed and adored by his devoted sister,
 Cornelia. Beyond is Cestellamnare, now
 the summer resort of the Neapolitan aristoc-
 racy just as 1t was in ancient times when
 Augustus, N. Agrippa and Antonius Plus
 sought the cool cloisters of it's majestic
 chestnut groves and enjoyed, as one may
 orange groves and plantations of mulberry,
 pomegranate, fig and olive; and where the
 elder Pliny perished while observing the Ve-
 suvean eruption which buried the city and
 with it Herculaneum and Pompeii. But 8
 few miles further, between where the waters
 of the river Sarna come tumbling through
 the vineyards into the sea and the Bosoo, or
 wooded region of Vesuvius, stand the silent
 walls of Pompeii, every avenue, structure, monument, tomb, palace and habitation
 nearly as perfect and equally az we'll direc- toried as before it's seventeen centuries of si- lence beneath it's ashy pail. Herculaneum is found but few miles northward towards Naples. Around on the other side of the gulf, Ischia, dream of natural beauty and luxuriant vegetation, was the Inarime of the ancients. Beneath it's volcanic Mount Epo- meo lay, like Enceladus under Atna, the giant Typoous, transfxed by the thunder bolt of Jupiter, ever moaning, and occasion ally believing, in his awful throes and pain. After Rome's fall Ischia suffered untold viz cissitudes. The celebrated general, Mar chesse Pescare, was born in it's castle. His sister, the brave and noble Constance, heroi. cally defended 1t against the French forces of Louis II. And it was to Isehia that the tal- ented Vittoria Colonna, wife of Pesoars, the platonic and poetical adorer of Michael An- gelo, retired to mourn her kingly husbands loss. Procida, islet of houses in glistening white, of the vine and wine and fishermen, where, during the festival of St. Michael in September, the women don the olden Greek costume of red and gold and dance the tar- entella in weird and fantastic orgies, lies be- tween Ischia and the Neapolitsn mainland of
 Cape Miseno. Then Posilipo, "end of care,"
 where the notorious glutton, Vedius Polio,
 built his wondrous epicurean villa, after
 wards possessed by Augustus. But the real shrine here is above Posilipo among the 1eafy vineyards of the heights. Here in little
 vaulted chamber hardly sixteen feet square
 the Georgics and Hneid were composed, and
 here in this old Roman columbaHum is the
 tomb of the gentle Virgil. Thus at the two
 extremities of the mainland headlands of the
 shining Neapolitan gulf lived two of the
 divinest poets the world has ever known Virgil among the vines upon the heights at the north; Tasso, of later and sadder hour, south; intellectual beacons of god-like power to shine with undiminished flame from the twin headland horns of this wondrous cres. cent shore through all the cycles of recorded time.
 So I believe 1t is more the mytholoeic, his- toric and poetic associations with which all the beautiful environs of Naples are rife, a flavor of which cannot but at some time and in some way be conjured in the fancy l of every traveller of sympathetic and re- captive mind, that have lent such an inde- fnable charm to Naples itself. Surely it is splendid and populous city. housing now over a half million souls. Forming with it's second circlipg ridge double crescent, it presents from any point of view, either in the bay or upon either sweep of shore a most superb scene to the beholder. Its hundreds of churches are sufficiently grim, dismal, and the repositories of ample enough ecclesiastical art, to satisfy the hungriest veneration for all that sort of l thing. Its national museum, containing as 1 it now does the oldest roya! collections of | antiquities and paintings. as we'll as the Farnese collection, the collections once | stored in the palaces of Capodimonte and | Portici, and the impressive excavated treas | ures of Stabie, Cume, Pompeii and Her- culaneum, is incontestibly one of the most valuable and interesting tho world now
 possesses. It's cathedral Ql Duomo) ba- silica with aisles of Gothic vaulting, with frescoes by Giordano and Solimena, and it's tombs of Charles !, of Anjou, Martel and Andreas, Kings of Hungary. of Innocent
 and imposing. Its Royal Palace, Palace An gri, Garibaldi's residence when dictator, Palace Madaloni. now housing the Bank of Naples, Palace Miranda, containing Rubens
 "Triumph of Beauty" and other great paint ings by Spagnoletto, Guido and Reni, Palace
 Santaugelo and the Royal palaces at the port side and upon Capodimonte, arc each and all tremendous piles, specimens of every variety of architectural msgniGcenee in embellish- | ment during the past thousand years. The Castle Nuovo, begun by Charles I, of An 1 jou, in 12S3, Castle dell' Ovo, built by Will l liam I, and Frederick II, in the twelfth century, the castles of Capuano, once the l principal residence of Hoenstaufen kings, of l Carmine, with it's huge round towers, and of Saint Elmo, now dismantled and used as a 1 military prison, are massive medieval piles, all glorious in pictures, but each valueless 1 for modern defense. Its royal theater, San Carlo, is one of the most magnificent opera | houses in all Italy and is g veritable musical I shrine, since the magical numbers of Rossi- | nj, Bellini, ATercadante and Donizstti were l first given to the world within it's walls. | And its great thoroughfares-the Toledo, l traversing the entire city from bay to moun- tain heights above, with the splendid streets of the new, or western, quarter, the derssly thronged lanes of the old or eastern quarter.
 the Marina, along the eastern waterside. and the brilliant Riviera di Chiaja, with it's fash | ionable throngs enjoying the cooling windi from the sea, with all Naples within the lat | ter's resplendent Villa Rsale at night, repeat | ing the scenes of the Marina at Palermo-art ali unsurpassed for diversity of picture, va' riety of incident and piquancy of colorfu | ensemble.
 l Yet Naples itself possesses no one grand
 predominatirg place, thing or characteristic
 of surpassing interest. This might perhap
 be modified by saying it was city of won