Almost adjoining the outskirts of the little capital of the island is Porto d’Ischia, with a deep circular harbour that was once the crater of an extinct volcano, wherein every variety of Mediterranean fishing craft is to be seen at anchor. Close to the port, embowered among groves of orange and lemon trees that in winter time are laden with bright or pale yellow fruit, stands a fine old villa of the Bourbon kings of Naples, once a favourite summer retreat of his Majesty King Bomba. Royalty has long abandoned Ischia, and the villa has now been converted into a bath house. Beyond its neglected park stretches an extensive pine forest, carpeted in spring time with daisies, marigolds and anemones, and even in February gay with yellow oxalis and redolent with the scent of hidden violets. The road from Ischia to Casamicciola, a distance of four miles, leads along the base of Monte Epomeo through olive groves and vineyards, the whitewashed walls of the domed cottages, the flat roofs and cisterns, and the frequent clumps of aloe or prickly pear giving an Eastern aspect to the scenery, though the sharp tinklings of the goat bells among the thickets of white heath and dark myrtle scrub on the hill-sides and the continual murmur of the waves breaking on the rocks below, serve to remind us we are upon the Neapolitan Riviera. Our destination at length is reached, the roadway crossing the deep valley of the Gurgitello with its sulphur baths, which once had a wide reputation and are still much frequented in the summer months by the people of Naples. Although the sources of the springs were certainly damaged by the earthquake of 1883, new bathing establishments have been built, and a fair number of patients are once more availing themselves of these beneficent waters, which of course are warranted to heal every bodily evil under the sun. A course of the Ischian waters therefore applied externally and internally (so the local doctors inform us) “Muove i paralitici, Spedisce gli apopletici, Gli asmatici, gli asfitici, Gl’ isterici, i diabetici Guarisce timpanitidi, E scrofule e rachitidi.”