ITALIAN SEA AND SKY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 128, 15 October 1875, Page 15

ITALIAN SEA AND SKY.

It is not always easy, when one stands upon the highlands which encircle the Piano de Sorrento, in some conditions of the atmosphere,_ to tell where the sea ends, and the sky begins. It seems practicable, at such times, for one to take ship, and sail up into heaven. I have often, indeed, seen white sails climbing up there, and fishing -boats, at secure anchor, I suppos*, riding apparently like balloons in the hazyair. Sea and air and land here are all kin, I suspect, and have certain immaterial qualities in common. The contours of the shores, and the outlines of the hills are as graceful as the mobile waves ; and if there is anywhere ruggedness and sharpness, the atmosphere throws a friendly veil over it, and tones all thab is inharmonious into the repose of beauty. The atmosphere is really something more than a medium ; it is a drapery, woven, one could affirm, with colours, or dipped in Oriental dyes. One might account thus for the prismatic colours I have often seen on the horizon at noon, when the sun was pouring down floods of clear, golden light. The simple light here, if one could ever represent it by pen, pencil, or brush, would draw the world hither to bathe in it. It is not thin sunshine, but a royal profusion, a golden substance, a transforming quality, a vesture of splendour for all these Mediterranean shores. The most comprehensive idea of Sorrento and the great plain on which it stands, embedded almost out of sight in foliage, we obtained one day from our boat, as we put out round the Capo di Sorrento, and stood away from Capri. There was not wind enough for sails 5 but thera were chopping waves, and swell enough to toss us about, and to produce bright flashes of light far out to sea. The red-shirted rowers siltntly bent .to their long sweeps ; and I lay in the tossing bow, and studied the high receding shore. The picture is simple — a precipice of rock or earth, faced with masonry in spots, almost of uniform height from point to point of the little bay, except where a deep gorge has split the rock, and comes to the sea, forming a cove, where a clusster of rude buildings is likely to gather. Along the precipice which ! now juts and now recedes a little, are villas, hotels, old convents, gardens, and groves. I can see steps and galleries cut in the face of the cliff, and caves and caverns, natural and artifical ; for one can cut this tufa with a knife ; and it would hardly seem preposterous to attempt to dig out a cool, roomy mansion in this rocky i'ront with a spade. — " Saunterings," by Warner.