When we look at the isolated position of this once famous city, shut off from the rest of Italy by a bulwark of precipices, in places so overhanging the town that they seem to dispute its possession with the tideless sea which washes the walls of the houses, it is not easy to realize that it was recognized in mediæval times as the first naval Power in Europe, owning factories and trading establishments in all the chief cities of the Levant, and producing a code of maritime laws whose leading principles have been incorporated in modern international law. No traces remain of the city's ancient grandeur, and the visitor is tempted to look upon the history of its former greatness as purely legendary. The road to Salerno is picturesque, but not so striking as that between Positano and Amalfi. It is not so daringly engineered, and the scenery is tamer. Vietri is the most interesting stopping-place. It is beautifully situated at the entrance to the gorge-like valley which leads to what has been called the "Italian Switzerland," and is surrounded on all sides by lemon and orange orchards. Salerno will not probably detain the visitor long, and, in fact, the town is chiefly known to travellers as the starting-place for the famous ruins of Pæstum. These temples, after those of Athens, are the best preserved, and certainly the most accessible, of any Greek ruins in Europe, and are a lasting witness to the splendor of the ancient Greek colony of Poseidonia (Pæstum). "_Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum_," says the poet, and certainly a visit to these beautiful ruins will make one less regret the inability to visit the Athenian Parthenon. Though the situation of the Pæstum Temple lacks the picturesque irregularity of the Acropolis, and the Temple of Girgenti in Sicily, these ruins will probably impress the imaginative spectator more. Their isolated and desolate position in the midst of this wild and abandoned plain, without a vestige of any building near, suggest an almost supernatural origin, and give a weird touch to this scene of lonely and majestic grandeur. There seems a dramatic contrast in bringing to an end at the solemn Temples of Pæstum our excursion in and around Naples. We began with the noise, bustle, and teeming life of a great twentieth-century city, and we have gone back some twenty-five centuries to the long-buried glory of Greek civilization. INDEX A Aboukir, and Nelson's victory, 253-255 About, Edmond, on the importance of Marseilles, 95 Abruzzi Mountains, 326 Aba-Abul-Hajez, builder of Moorish Castle, Gibraltar, 15 Abyla, Phoenician name of Ceuta, 26 Aci Castello, 300 Aci Reale, 300 Acis and Galatea, 300 Æneas and the games at Trapani, 318 Africa, "Crystal atmosphere" of, 5 Agate Cape, 57 Agay, 148 Agnone, 302 Alameda Gardens, Gibraltar, 13 Alassio, 159 Alban, Mont, 143 Alcantara, Valley of the, 300 Alexander the Great, founding Alexandria, 237