With this addition to our party, we re-embarked, and pulled across the bay, the distance of a mile or more, to the Lucrine Lake. The water was smooth as a mirror, and as our swarthy people, each of whom stood with his face towards the bows of the sparranara, pushed their heavy oars, I could almost fancy we were in a Roman galley, passing from one villa of Baiæ to another. It is scarcely possible to imagine a region that was once so renowned for its luxury and magnificence,--so teeming with historical associations, temples, palaces, baths, bridges, groves, and gardens,--that has more completely changed its character, than this. Of remains, and those of a nature to establish localities, there are abundance. It might be difficult to find another place in Italy, out of Rome, where so many are crowded into so small a space; but they are hidden, require to be sought, and all the glories of the past, so far as mere outward appearances are concerned, are completely supplanted by the present negligent and half-wasted aspect of the whole shore. The Lucrine Lake has almost disappeared, little remaining beyond a sort of pond in the sands; but, in its place, a natural curiosity has thrust itself, which serves strangely to add to the jumble of wonders that this extraordinary district offers. It is a small cone, or mountain, of volcanic embers and sand, which was forced upwards by a convulsion of nature, in 1538, and which is properly enough, in such a neighbourhood, called _Monte Nuovo_. It may be two or three hundred feet high, and has a sterile, naked look, the meagre verdure it possesses being altogether of a different hue from that of the rest of the soil. We can see this cone from the terrace at Sorrento. We did not stop at the Lucrine to eat oysters, but followed a tangled path, between the upstart hill, and some of the more venerable heights that once groaned beneath palaces and Roman villas, to the shores of Avernus. Why Virgil chose this spot as the entrance to hell, I cannot tell you; unless it were for its reputed depth. It is a circular sheet of dark water, with shores that rise on every side except that by which we approached, and which are deserted and tangled. The ruins of a temple stand in the solitude, erected, it is said, in honour of Pluto. Agrippa is thought to have cut a canal from this lake to the sea in order to form a port. The cost of such an undertaking at present would not be great, and it would make one of the best man-of-war harbours in the world; easy of access and of defence, and as snug as a _boudoir_. But to need a harbour, a people must have ships.