of Vico, picturesquely situated on a rocky eminence. The scenery gets bolder as we climb the Punta di Scutola. From this promontory we get the first glimpse of the beautiful Piano di Sorrento. It looks like one vast garden, so thickly is it covered with vineyards, olive groves, and orange and lemon orchards, with an occasional aloe and palm tree to give an Oriental touch to the landscape. The bird's-eye view from the promontory gives the spectator a general impression of a carpet, in which the prevailing tones of color are the richest greens and gold. Descending to this fertile plateau, we find a delightful blending of the sterner elements of the picturesque with the pastoral and idyllic. The plain is intersected with romantic, craggy ravines and precipitous, tortuous gorges, resembling the ancient stone quarries of Syracuse, their rugged sides covered with olives, wild vines, aloes, and Indian figs. The road to Amalfi here leaves the sea and is carried through the heart of this rich and fertile region, and about three miles from Sorrento it begins to climb the little mountain range which separates the Sorrento plain from the Bay of Salerno. We can hardly, however, leave the level little town, consecrated to memories of Tasso, unvisited. Its flowers and its gardens, next to its picturesque situation, constitute the great charm of Sorrento. It seems a kind of garden-picture, its peaceful and smiling aspect contrasting strangely with its bold and stern situation. Cut off, a natural fortress, from the rest of the peninsula by precipitous gorges, like Constantine in Algeria, while its sea-front consists of a precipice descending sheer to the water's edge, no wonder that it invites comparison with such dissimilar towns as Grasse, Monaco, Amalfi and Constantine, according to the aspect which first strikes the visitor. After seeing Sorrento, with its astonishing wealth of flowers, the garden walls overflowing with cataracts of roses, and the scent of acacias, orange and lemon flowers pervading everything, we begin to think that, in comparing the outlying plain of Sorrento to a flower-garden, we have been too precipitate. Compared with Sorrento itself, the plain is but a great orchard or market-garden. Sorrento is the real flower-garden, a miniature Florence, "the village of flowers and the flower of villages."