I am above the highest olive-trees, and, if I turned that way, should look over the tops of what seems a vast grove of them, out of which a white roof, and an old time-eaten tower here and there, appears; and the sun is flooding them with waves of light, which I think a person delicately enough organized could hear beat. Beyond the brown roofs of the town, the terraced hills arise, in semicircular embrace of the plain; and the fine veil over them is partly the natural shimmer of the heat, and partly the silver duskiness of the olive-leaves. I sit with my back to all this, taking the entire force of this winter sun, which is full of life and genial heat, and does not scorch one, as I remember such a full flood of it would at home. It is putting sweetness, too, into the oranges, which, I observe, are getting redder and softer day by day. We have here, by the way, such a habit of taking up an orange, weighing it in the hand, and guessing if it is ripe, that the test is extending to other things. I saw a gentleman this morning, at breakfast, weighing an egg in the same manner; and some one asked him if it was ripe. It seems to me that the Mediterranean was never bluer than it is to-day. It has a shade or two the advantage of the sky: though I like the sky best, after all; for it is less opaque, and offers an illimitable opportunity of exploration. Perhaps this is because I am nearer to it. There are some little ruffles of air on the sea, which I do not feel here, making broad spots of shadow, and here and there flecks and sparkles. But the schooners sail idly, and the fishing-boats that have put out from the marina float in the most dreamy manner. I fear that the fishermen who have made a show of industry, and got away from their wives, who are busily weaving nets on shore, are yielding to the seductions of the occasion) and making a day of it. And, as I look at them, I find myself debating which I would rather be, a fisherman there in the boat, rocked by the swell, and warmed by the sun, or a friar, on the terrace of the garden on the summit of Deserto, lying perfectly tranquil, and also soaked in the sun. There is one other person, now that I think of it, who may be having a good time to-day, though I do not know that I envy him. His business is a new one to me, and is an occupation that one would not care to recommend to a friend until he had tried it: it is being carried about in a basket. As I went up the new Massa road the other day, I met a ragged, stout, and rather dirty woman, with a large shallow basket on her head. In it lay her husband, a large man, though I think a little abbreviated as to his legs. The woman asked alms. Talk of Diogenes in his tub! How must the world look to a man in a basket, riding about on his wife's head? When I returned, she had put him down beside the road in the sun, and almost in danger of the passing vehicles. I suppose that the affectionate creature