We slept at Mola, and here Cicero was assassinated. The ruins of his country-house are still here. The town lies in the lap of a graceful bay, and in all Italy, it is said, there is no spot more favored by nature. The mountains shelter it from the winds of the north; the soil produces, spontaneously, the orange, the myrtle, the olive, delicious grapes, jasmine, and many odoriferous herbs. This and its neighborhood was called, by the great orator and statesman who selected it for his retreat, "the most beautiful patrimony of the Romans." The Mediterranean spreads out from its bosom, the lovely islands near Naples bound its view, Vesuvius sends up its smoke and fire in the south, and back from its hills stretches a country fertile and beautiful as a paradise. This is a place of great resort for the English and other travellers in the summer. The old palaces are turned into hotels, and we entered our inn through an avenue of shrubs that must have been planted and trimmed for a century. * * * * * We left Mola before dawn and crossed the small river Garigliano as the sun rose. A short distance from the southern bank, we found ourselves in the midst of ruins, the golden beams of the sun pouring upon us through the arches of some once magnificent structure, whose area is now crossed by the road. This was the ancient Minturna, and the ruins are those of an amphitheatre, and a temple of Venus. Some say that it was in the marshes about the now waste city, that the soldier sent by Sylla to kill Marius, found the old hero, and, struck with his noble mien, fell with respect at his feet.