We had a stiff breeze as we steered our course to the Marina Piccola, one of the only two landing‐places of the Island of Capri. We determined, as we were to be there for so short a time, to sleep at the small inn close by, called the “Little Tiberius,” and which we found comfortable, though very unassuming and not quite finished. We dined in the _loggia_, shaded by a vine, and they brought us cherries the size of plums that melted like a ripe peach, and beautiful oranges, gathered with the green leaves around them. The only way to get about on the little Island of Capri is on donkeys or on foot. We chose the former, and directed our course to where stood the Palace of Tiberius. The village of Anacapri is very picturesque, with its narrow streets, sometimes raised a step or two, dark, wide doorways, and domed roofs. We went to the top of the precipitous rock called “Il salto di Tiberio,”(49) which falls sheer and smooth down to the sea, without a break save a few tufts of wild flowers, and over which Tiberius is said to have flung his victims, whose bodies then floated away to the coast of Baiæ. When Augustus was dying, he said of his successor, “I pity the Romans. They are about to be ground between slow jaws.” Never was the cruelty of a coward better expressed than by these words. I suppose the only history that will ever be correctly written will be that which will date from the day of judgment—that day which alone will clear up the falsehoods, misapprehensions, and delusions with which all history abounds, and will leave probably only the devil as black as he is painted, while it will also prove that many of our angels are fallen ones. It is always difficult, perhaps impossible, to arrive at the secret motives of a man who is a coward, is reserved, has a certain superficial refinement of taste and intellect, and is cursed with absolute power. Tiberius appreciated the extraordinary beauty of his favorite Capri; and yet he dwelt there only to commit the most hideous crimes in secret, while discoursing on the subtleties of grammar and the beauty of art, and writing elegies and love songs. He seemed to have no human affection save for the low‐born Sejanus, whom nevertheless years afterwards he accused to the Roman Senate in a pitiful, whining letter, and who was torn to pieces in consequence. He always hated those who in any way belonged to him, whether by a natural tie or by that of a supposed intimacy. He hated Rome; but even the terror and dread he had of it, giving way to the longing to know how far his bloody orders were being carried out, he approached the gates. That day his pet serpent, the friend of his bosom, was killed and eaten by a million of midges. “Multitudes are dangerous,” remarked the sententious emperor, and back he went to the top of his solitary rock at Capri.