Amalfi would seem to have been built for pleasure, for the situation is beautifully picturesque; though, the beach excepted, and a gorge in the mountains that permits of a better path than is usual here, were the only two practical advantages I could discover about its site. You may imagine the effect of a town of some size, clinging to rocks between mountains and the sea, with churches, convents, and villas, stuck about on shelves, according to caprice or accident. These people are the very opposites of us Americans in their urban economy; for while we level molehills with the sagacity and zeal of speculators, they perch themselves on cliffs, and people ravines like poets. We may have the best of it, considering a house as an _article_, in which a room must contain but _two_ windows, since the _third_ curtain will prevent its letting; but they have greatly the best of it, considering a house as a place, in which one is to indulge in his individuality, and in pleasant thoughts. I believe we make money faster than any other nation, while we spend it with less satisfaction. A copy of the lost Pandects of Justinian was found at Amalfi, in 1137. I wonder where the Pandects of Trade were found? As our time was short, we ordered a large boat with six oars, and left Amalfi within an hour, taking some refreshments with us, the country changed materially as we approached the head of the gulf, the peaks becoming lower and less perpendicular, and the shores generally more accessible. In the direction of Calabria the coast appeared low, the Apennines retiring inland, though their blue and ridgy outlines were visible in the haze. A lad who pulled the stroke oar, and who answered most of our questions, amused us greatly with his _patois_. Signore, he invariably pronounced like _snore_;—“_S’nore, si; s’nore, no_;”—as you may suppose, to W——’s great delight. We found Salerno seated on the strand, with hills behind it, and an amphitheatre of mountains in their rear, again. It occupies some such situation on the gulf of Salerno as Naples occupies on her own bay, though less picturesquely surrounded in some respects, while it is more so in others. The southern, or rather, the eastern, shore of the gulf, especially, is comparatively tame, on account of the flat land bounding the water. The place of our destination was in that direction, still distant some five-and-twenty or thirty miles. Salerno is little more than a roadstead, for vessels of any size; though it has a mole of some extent, behind which smaller craft can lie. The sciroccos have a full rake into this bay; but against all winds from west northerly, round to south-east, there is a tolerable protection.