distinctive feature--unless it be a grove of old oleanders, which were once a sight to see in summer time. Many of these have now disappeared, perhaps from natural decay; and the survivors are mixed with orange trees. These, during late years, have been largely planted about the town. In one of the chief streets they are growing by the side of the road, like planes or chestnuts in other towns. The golden fruit and the glossy leaves, always a delight to see, appear to possess a double charm by contrast with the arid flags and dusty streets. Ripe oranges in dozens, in hundreds, all along by the pathway, and within two or three yards of the pavement! Are the boys of Spezzia exceptionally virtuous? or are these golden apples of the Hesperides a special pride of the populace, and does "Father Stick" still rule in home and school, and is this immunity the result of physical coercion rather than of moral suasion? Be this as it may, I have with mine own eyes seen golden oranges by hundreds hanging on the trees in the streets of Spezzia, and would be glad to know how long they would remain in a like position in those of an English town, among "the most law-abiding people in the universe!" But if the vicinity of the town has lost some of its ancient charm, if modern Spezzia reminds us too much, now of Woolwich, now of a "new neighborhood" on the outskirts of London, we have but to pass into the uplands, escaping from the neighborhood of forts, to find the same beauties as the mountains of this coast ever afford. There the sugar-cane and the vine, the fig and the olive cease, though the last so abounds that one might suppose it an indigenous growth; there the broken slopes are covered with scrub oak and dwarf pine; there the myrtle blossoms, hardly ceasing in the winter months; there the strawberry-tree shows its waxen flowers, and is bright in season with its rich crimson berries. Even the villages add a beauty to the landscape--at any rate, when regarded from a distance; some are perched high up on the shoulders of hills, with distant outlooks over land and sea; others lie down by the water's edge in sheltered coves, beneath some ruined fort, which in olden time protected the fisher-folk from the raids of corsairs. Such are Terenza and Lerici, looking at each other across the waters of the little "Porto;" and many another village, in which grey and white and pink tinted houses blend into one pleasant harmony of color. For all this part of the coast is a series of rocky headlands and tiny bays, one succession of quiet nooks, to which the sea alone forms a natural highway. Not less irregular, not less sequestered, is the western coast of the Bay of Spezzia, which has been already mentioned. Here, at Porto Venere, a little village still carries us back in its name to classic times; and the old church on the rugged headland stands upon a site which was once not unfitly occupied by a temple of the seaborn goddess. The beauty of the scene is enhanced by a