It is a flat dusty stretch of road that lies between Fuorigrotta and Bagnoli; the high walls give only occasional glimpses of well-tilled _parterres_—one cannot call these tiny patches of cultivation fields—with thriving crops of brilliant green corn, of claret-red clover, of purple lucerne, and of the white-flowered “sad lupin,” which Vergil has immortalised in verse. The round bright yellow beans of the lupin crop, known locally by the name of _spassa-tiempî_ (time-killers), afford an article of food to the very poorest of the population. A quaint story runs that one day an impoverished philosopher, reduced to making his dinner off a handful of these beans, and imagining himself in consequence the most wretched wight in existence, was cheered and comforted by observing himself followed by a still more miserable fellow-mortal, who was engaged in picking up and eating the husks of the beans that, _more italiano_, he had thrown carelessly on to the pathway after their insipid farinaceous contents had been sucked out! Above us to the right are the heights of Monte Spina, covered with groves of the umbrella pine, the typical tree of Naples; to our left extends the verdant ridge of Posilipo, ending in Cape Coroglio, beyond which the massive form of Nisida rises proudly from the blue expanse of water. All the landscape shows somewhat hard in the glare of noontide, and we find the enveloping clouds of fine white dust very oppressive and disagreeable. From time to time a lumbering country cart is passed with its attendant bare-footed peasant; otherwise there is little sign of life on the high road. The bright sunlight flashes upon the horse’s polished brass harness, and upon the elaborate erection of charms placed thereon, with the avowed object of averting the dreaded Evil Eye, that everlasting bugbear of all dwellers upon these southern shores. On his poor drooping head the worn-out old steed carries a large bell with four jingling clappers and two brazen crescents, the horns of one of which point upwards and of the other towards the ground. On the off-side of the headgear is a bunch of bright-coloured ribbands or woollen tassels, from which depends the single horn, the invaluable Neapolitan talisman that is supposed to protect every man, woman, child or beast, from the chance glance of a passing _jettatore_. Above this glowing mass of colour some three or four feathers of a pheasant’s tail are stuck, apparently with no ulterior purpose than that of ornament; but beside the bunch of ribbands there is also fixed a piece of wolf’s skin, to give strength to the jaded animal, for, remarks the sapient Pliny, “a wolf’s skin attached to a horse’s neck will render him proof against all weariness.” Personally, we should think a little more consideration and some elementary knowledge of farriery would have been of more service to the ill-used beasts round Naples than the excellent Pliny’s highly original receipt. Besides this powerful battery