I believe I told you that there were two Englishmen in the cabriolet in my journey to Naples. The statement was not quite correct, as they are Scotchmen, but we do not mind these little differences so far from home. We took a boat together a few days ago to visit Baiæ. There were three men, and the agreement was for sixteen carlines. The men were moderate in their demands, for at first they only asked thirty carlines, and perhaps had we gone without a bargain, would not have required more than forty, and as a general rule at Naples, the man who does not ask you more than twice what he ought to have beforehand, or three times as much after the service is performed, has treated you well. The trip was delightful, we set off about half-past eight, and touched first at the point beyond Pausilippo. Virgil’s school is here, and several other antiquities, christened the Temple of Fortune, of Augustus, the villa of Lucullus, of Pollio, and the fishponds of the latter, where he fed his lampreys on human flesh: but these pretended fishponds are long vaulted chambers, and were probably reservoirs for water, like so many others scattered in all directions in this neighbourhood. In a climate like England, where the rain is divided through the year, such reservoirs would be comparatively of little use; but here, where it rains in three days more than as many inches, and then no more for several months, they are of great value. A single fit of rainy weather, which usually lasts from three to five days, might fill a large reservoir to the depth of 12 or 15 feet, and provide a small but constant supply of water through the summer. There are other vaults scattered about in the vineyards, which have not been reservoirs, for they have doors in them. Other remains again are shapeless masses, or mere traces of foundations, some in the sea, and some on land, and so numerous, so mixed, and so confused, that it would be hardly possible to mark what belongs to one edifice, and what to another. Some of them indeed are so deeply buried in the hill, that they seem rather the productions of nature than of art: the prevailing style of workmanship is rubble, faced with a reticulated work of very soft stone, which is less durable than the mortar which cemented it, and yet the mortar here is seldom very good; but even this imperfection of materials enhances our wonder; where the waste is so considerable, and yet so much still remains, what must the edifices once have been! The hill consists of a soft, sandy rock, which has furnished the materials of the buildings, and we cannot help reflecting, that one stormy English winter would wash half these antiquities away. In one place, a long vault is cut in the rock, which perhaps furnished a subterraneous road to some villa. It is very extensive, but the earth has fallen in, and rendered the farther part inaccessible. Leaving this point, we passed by the island of Nisida, an extinct volcano, part of