everything pointed to complete acquiescence in his position. He had, in fact, scarcely landed before he began to take possession of his new dominions, as a good monarch should do, and had soon visited the places of importance in Elba and its dependant isles. His corpulence rendered climbing and even walking difficult, but his active spirit overcame all difficulties; and the Elbans who met him, his officers and attendants, continually on the roads and mountain paths, felt quite convinced that the Emperor was devoting himself to their welfare. One of his first expeditions brought vividly before him the extent of his fall. He had visited all the forts and surroundings of Portoferraio, had collected information concerning the salt manufacture (a Government monopoly) and the tunny fishery; and turning to the left from the land gate of Portoferraio, had pushed as far as the iron mines of Rio—then, as now, Government property—and the fort of Longone; but he had not yet climbed the hills that shut in his capital at the back. These are crossed by a few bridle-paths and by a road, sheer up and down, paved now with the native rock, now with loose, rolling stones, and known as the Colle Reciso. About half-way up the Portoferraio side of this road, a breakneck path leads to the right, up the face of a hill called St. Lucia, whence the Etruscans once drew copper for their bronze. The Emperor, Colonel Campbell, General Bertrand, and their attendants, riding to the top of this hill, found themselves among the ruins of a very large ancient castle. The towers lie prone in enormous masses of masonry, the walls have partly fallen in, partly been quarried for surrounding buildings; of roof there is no trace; the place is simply a large grass-grown square surrounded by naked, ruined blocks of masonry. Not quite abandoned, either, for in one corner is a tiny church with a couple of rooms built on to it in which a hermit once lived and died. Here the party halted and looked round. They were dominating the narrowest part of the island. Right and left the hills stretch away in barren, fantastic peaks now crowned with ruins, now sheer with granite cliffs; before and behind the sea is visible in four different places. Napoleon looked around for a little while, taking in the principal points of the landscape, and then, turning to Campbell, said, with a quiet smile:—“_Eh, mon île est bien petite_.”