Such tales as these blow about the world like balls of thistledown, lighting now here, now there, and securing at each resting-place a passionate belief. What is the truth of the fact common to both these tales, and in what age and place are we to seek for it? The age of Mediterranean folklore is past guessing, and the variety of races which have dwelt upon the shores of the great inland sea should make it the richest in the world. Whilst we have been discoursing of the Rufoli the road, having climbed over the shoulder of the hill above Atrani, has been slowly mounting the valley of the Dragone, and at last it emerges on the small piazza fronting the Cathedral of Ravello. By the time he attains this plateau on the mountain-top the traveller will have seen enough of the approach to set him pondering by what fact it happened that Ravello ever grew into an important city. For nothing is more certain than that the course of trade is not determined by caprice. Chance has no part in it, and any man who wishes to understand the causes of the rise or fall of cities must ask himself in every case what convenience brought trade thither, or what inconvenience checked it. Now the inconvenience of the situation in which Ravello lies is manifest, and as the existing road was made out of a rough muletrack only in the present generation, the difficulty of access either to Ravello or La Scala must have been immense. Yet that difficulty did not deflect the trade. Both cities were undoubtedly rich. La Scala is said to have possessed one hundred and thirty churches, a statement which seems incredible to-day, even if the outlying towns of Pontone and Minuto be included in the number. D'Engenio enumerates no less than twenty-five families of undoubted nobility at Ravello, and adds to his list the words "et alii." At Scala he mentions only twelve. All abandoned these hilltops centuries ago, leaving their palaces to decay. That is scarcely strange. It is easy to understand why trade left this half-inaccessible eyrie. The wonder is what brought it here. The city had a great reputation for the dyeing of stuffs. Why did not the dyers establish their vats at the foot of the hill, profiting by the constant intercourse of Amalfi with other cities? I can see no other reason for the growth of Ravello and La Scala than the paramount necessity in the early Middle Ages of safety from sea rovers. It will be impossible to verify this guess until some really scholarly man, probably a German, elects to spend his learning in elucidating the dim and tangled history of this most interesting coast. It would be a noble task, and it is strange that some fine scholar has not been attracted to the work ere now.