The slight annoyance caused by the great crowds is amply compensated for by the beauties of the extraordinarily grand scenery which is to be found within the island desecrated by memories of that "deified beast Tiberius," as Dickens calls him. What constitutes the chief charm of the natural features of Capri are the sharp contrasts and the astonishing variety in the scenery. Rugged precipices, in height exceeding the cliffs of Tintagel, and in beauty and boldness of outline surpassing the crags of the grandest Norwegian fiords, wall in a green and fertile garden-land covered with orange-orchards, olive-groves, and corn-fields. Cruising round this rock-bound and apparently inaccessible island, it seems a natural impregnable fortress, a sea-girt Gibraltar guarding the entrance of the gulf, girdled round with precipitous crags rising a thousand feet sheer out of the sea, the cliff outline broken by steep ravines and rocky headlands, with outworks of crags, reefs, and Titanic masses of tumbled rocks. These physical contrasts are strikingly paralleled in the history of the island. This little speck on the earth's surface, now given up solely to fishing, pastoral pursuits, and the exploitation of tourists, and as little affected by public affairs as if it were in the midst of the Mediterranean, instead of being almost within cannon-shot of the metropolis of South Italy, has passed through many vicissitudes, conquered in turn by Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans; under Rome little known and used merely as a lighthouse station for the benefit of the corn-galleys plying from Sicily to Naples, till the old Emperor Augustus took a fancy to it, and used it as a sanatorium for his declining years. Some years later we find this isolated rock in the occupation of the infamous Tiberius, as the seat of government from which he ruled the destinies of the whole empire. Then, to run rapidly through succeeding centuries, we find Capri, after the fall of Rome, sharing in the fortunes and misfortunes of Naples, and losing all historic individuality till the beginning of the present century, when the Neapolitan Gibraltar became a political shuttlecock, tossed about in turn between Naples, England, and France; and now it complacently accepts the destiny Nature evidently marked out for it, and has become the sanatorium of Naples, and the Mecca of artists and lovers of the picturesque.