We had soon crossed the bay, and landing on a bushy coast, near some fragments of a temple which they say was raised to Hercules, advanced into the country by narrow tracks covered with moss and strewed with shining pebbles; to the right and left, broad masses of luxuriant foliage, chestnut, bay, and ilex, that shelter the ruins of columbariums and sepulchral chambers, where the dead sleep snug amongst rampant herbage. The region was still, save when a cock crew from the hamlets, which, as well as the tombs, are almost concealed by thickets. No parties of smart Englishmen and connoisseurs were about. I had all the land to myself, and mounted its steeps and penetrated into its recesses, with the importance of a discoverer. What a variety of narrow paths, between banks and shades, did I wildly follow! my savage laughing loud at my odd gestures and useless activity. He wondered I did not scrape the ground for medals, and pocket little bits of plaster, like other plausible young travellers that had gone before me. After ascending some time, I followed him into the Piscina Mirabilis, the wondrous reservoir which Nero constructed to supply his fleet, when anchored in the neighbouring bay. ’Tis a grand labyrinth of solid vaults and pillars, as you well know, but you cannot conceive the partial gleams of sunshine which played on the arches, nor the variety of roots and ivies trailing from the cove. A noise of trickling waters prevailed, that had almost lulled me to sleep as I rested myself on the celandine which carpets the floor; but curiosity urging me forward, I gained the upper air; walked amongst woods a few minutes, and then into grots and dismal excavations (prisons they call them), which began to weary me. After having gone up and down in this manner for some time, we at last reached an eminence that looked over the Mare Morto, and Elysian fields trembling with poplars. The Dead Lake, a faithful emblem of eternal tranquillity, looked deep and solemn. A few peasants were passing along its margin, their shadows reflected on the water: all was serene and peaceful. Turning from the lake I espied a rock at about a league distant, whose summit was clad with verdure, and finding this to be the promontory of Misenus, I immediately set my face to that quarter. We passed several dirty villages, inhabited by an ill-favoured generation, infamous for depredations and murders. Their gardens, however, discover some marks of industry; the fields are separated by neat hedges of cane, and corn seemed to flourish in the inclosures. I walked on with slowness and deliberation, musing at every step, and stopping ever and anon to rest myself by springs and tufted bay-trees; when insensibly we began to leave the cultivated lands behind us, and to lose ourselves in shady wilds, which, to all appearance, no mortal had ever trodden. Here were no paths, no enclosures; a primeval rudeness characterized the whole scene,—