On entering the town, I was greeted by the shouts of the people, who had donned the red cockade of the Neapolitan king. Gentlemen bowed, and ladies smiled and waved their handkerchiefs from verandahs and sun-shaded windows; women held their children aloft at arms’ length, and the ragged artisan flourished his broad straw hat over the half door of his shop; all joining in the general burst of welcome, and cries of long life to King Giorgio of Great Britain. While riding through the principal street, with all the hurry and importance of an aide-de-camp bearing the fate of empires and of armies in his sabretache, I could behold on every hand the traces of that dreadful earthquake which, two hundred years before, had overwhelmed the ancient and once-opulent city, converting it in a moment into a vast fetid marsh. Here and there stood a palace, rearing its time-worn facade amid the miserable houses or filthy hovels of which the modern St. Eufemio is principally composed; while fragments of columns, crumbling capitals, and shattered entablatures still lay strewn on every side. The mansion of the podesta, or mayor, and of Ser Villani, the principal lawyer, as well as others of a better description, bore marks of French violence and rapine. Torn from its foundations, lay a column with the arms of Luigi d’Alfieri, the grand bailiff, carved upon it; here lay a statue, there a fountain broken to pieces; the madonnas at the street corners were all demolished, the niches empty, the lamps gone; and many gaps appeared on each side of the way, where houses had been pulled down for firewood, or wantonly burned by the brigade of the Marchese di Monteleone—a Buonapartist commander, whom common report declared to be an Englishman. All the stately trees that once bordered the Marina, or promenade, along the sea-shore, had been cut away and destroyed; probably, less from necessity than for the purpose of annoying the people: for the French, if allowed to be the most gallant nation, are also considered the most reckless soldiers in Europe. *CHAPTER III.* *VISCONTE DI SANTUGO.* The villa of the Visconte di Santugo was some distance beyond St. Eufemio, and my way towards it lay along the desolate Marina. The appearance of the bay, studded with our fleet of transports and men-of-war, was beautiful; its deep blue was now fast changing to bright gold and crimson, in the deep ruddy glow of the setting sun. The calm sea shone like a vast polished mirror; in whose bright surface the rocky headlands and the yellow beach, the picturesque little town of St. Eufemio, and the castles on the cliffs, with the little groups of white cottages that nestled under their battlements as if for protection, and the stately frigates, with their yards squared, and open ports bristling with cannon, were all reflected: every form and tint as vividly defined below the surface as above.