The fountain was no great distance up--perhaps a mile or so, and it certainly was a natural curiosity. It was the shape of the bowl of an egg-cup, and the Governor claimed that it was fifty feet deep; and I dare swear it was over thirty, though one could see every pebble on the bottom, and see great mullet, looking quite blue, at what they considered a safe depth from the attentions of man. It was curious to see these sea fish running up to half a dozen pounds' weight so far from the sea, in water fresh from the fountain head, and icy cold. I was rather thankful that Will had his Donna Rusidda beside him, for he would have been itching to slip out of his clothes somehow, and dive for the stones, which looked like turquoises, at the bottom of the spring. The prospect of groping about with his eyes open under thirty or forty feet of water, clearer than glass, would have been irresistible. As it was, he did nothing worse to shock the Governor than attempt to drink some of the same water during the _al fresco_ banquet held, while the _barcas_ were moored to the low papyrus bushes round the fountain or, as I should call it, the spring, which was the only place on the whole river where there was room for two or three boats together. Whether his Excellency considered all water unwholesome, or that Will's rushing to drink it in place of wine was a reflection on his hospitality, did not appear. I do not know when I have seen such a scene, which in a different way reminded me of the pictures of a certain Watteau captured by my Lord Eastry in one of his prizes, and now hanging in Will's gallery; though I do not maintain that the Governor's ladies, beautiful and appropriate as their light summer robes were, approached the Watteau ladies in elegance of costume. But, on the other hand, the prim fountain with Diana in the centre, supported by two dolphins, with their lips curled and their tails plaited, certainly did not come up to our clear pool, as deep as many a house is high, carrying on its bosom three or four great _barcas_, hanging with crimson and silver, and ringed all round by overhanging palmetto-like clumps of the feathery papyrus of old Egypt. Nor, I confess, do the men in Monsieur Watteau's pictures, who are generally dancing, come up to men like Captain Troubridge and Captain Berry, in the uniform of His Majesty's Navy. And every little detail, each feather in the plumes of the papyrus, each jewel, every burnished nail within reflecting distance of the water, was mirrored as clearly as the bright blue uniforms and shining epaulettes of His Majesty's officers, and the great masses of crimson in the boat-hangings. We had music, too, from the Governor's--well, I call them lute-players--especially brought over from Naples, wearing the old doublet and hose, crimson and silver liveries of the Governor's family, which their forerunners had worn when Tommaso de Vigilia painted them three centuries before in the