The morning dawned. I jumped out of the vettura, and set about making myself acquainted with the position of Aleria. The site is well selected. The plain is commanded by a hill, from which there is a splendid view of Diana's pond, the Stagno del Sale, the sea, and the neighbouring islands. Fine mountain-cones enclose the panorama on the land side. The morning was deliciously refreshing, the air full of the transitory radiance of the early dawn, the view unlimited and comprehensive, and the ground on which I stood, Roman—nay, more still, Phœnician. The Aleria of the present day consists of only two houses, which lie close to the Genoese fort. The ancient Aleria included several hills, and extended down towards the bed of the Tavignano, as far as the plain; at Diana's pond old iron rings still indicate the position of the town harbour. I stroll towards the ruins hard by. All round, the hills are strewn with stones—the ruins of walls and houses, but I find no remains of ornamental architecture, neither capital nor frieze, nothing but rude materials of a small size. Here and there may be seen remains of arches, also a few steps belonging to what was once a circus, and a ruin which the people call _casa reale_, and which is said to have been the Prætor's house; but I do not know on what grounds, for the remains tell nothing—there is nothing to indicate even the epoch. If one might infer from the extent of ground which it seems to have covered, Aleria must have been a town of about 20,000 inhabitants. Vases and Roman coins have been found on the soil; some goat-herds informed me, that three days before, some one had picked up a gold coin. One of the coast-guard, returning to the fort, roused my curiosity to the utmost by telling me that he had found two marble tablets, with inscriptions on them which nobody could decypher. The tablets, he said, were shut up in a house, but he had taken a copy of the inscription. He then drew out his pocket-book; the inscriptions were in Latin, and copied by this excellent archæologist in a style so truly Phœnician, that it was with difficulty I could make out that the one was a votive-writing of the time of Augustus, the other a monumental inscription. That was all I found of the ancient Aleria. CHAPTER III. THEODORE VON NEUHOFF. "Abenamar, Abenamar, Moro de la Moreria, El dia que tu naciste, Grandes senales avia."—_Moorish Romance._ It was at Aleria that, on the 12th of March 1736, Theodore von Neuhoff disembarked, who was the first of a succession of Corsican _parvenus_, who give a mediæval and romantic character to modern European history.