Next morning we were off the Pontine Marshes, with Cape Circello, the insulated bluff in which they terminate, and the islands of Ponza and Palmarola, in sight. The latter were the first Neapolitan land we saw. The wind came ahead and light, as had invariably been the case since we left Leghorn in the morning. We gave ourselves no uneasiness on this account, feeling almost certain of a shift to the westward; a change as ancient as the Romans, this being their zephyr, which blows in summer almost daily in this part of the Mediterranean. From the sea the Pontine Marshes did not present an appearance sensibly different from that of the coast near Ostia. Both were low, and in some places reedy; and yet we saw dwellings along them immediately on the coast. One large, naked, treeless house, we were told, was the residence of a cardinal. There was even a small town visible, though nothing of importance, immediately next the marshes. The lowest part of the Pontine Marshes, however, is not on the coast to the west of them, but on the south, near Terracina; the stream that passes through them, as well as the canal, having that direction. The margin of the marshes next to the sea, I take it, is higher than their centre, the drains running north and south. A favourable slant of wind enabled us to double Cape Circello at noon, when we opened the Gulf of Gaeta, Terracina, and all the grand coast of that vicinity. The volcanic peaks of Ischia loomed in the distance, and the zephyr coming fresh and fair, we soon raised other objects of interest along the Neapolitan shore. Our course was, as near as might be, to the south-east, across the mouth of the Gulf, and, as the coast receded, the fine mountains fell away in haze; but our mariners having an instinct for the land, we got better views than might have been expected, as we did not make a perfectly straight wake. Towards the middle of the afternoon we had the town and citadel of Gaeta abeam, dimly visible. A thunder-storm among the mountains produced a magnificent effect, though it frightened the padrone into shifting his sails, and even spars, for he sent down the old ones, and sent up a lighter set. We lost time unnecessarily by this precaution, for the wind did not increase. He showed me, however, two Neapolitan gun-vessels struggling through it, two or three leagues in shore of us; and we had the consolation of knowing that, had we been in their places, our smaller sails might have been of use. Just before the gust appeared, I discovered a conical isolated mountain to the south-east looming up in the haze. It proved to be Vesuvius.--We saw it over the nearer but lower land of Baiæ and its vicinity. As usual, the wind fell at sunset, and finally it shifted. We had a little rain, and went to sleep uncertain of the result.