THE ARCH OF DRUSUS SPANS THE APPIAN WAY Autochrome by Hans Hildenbrand Along this Queen of Roads Roman legions once marched to the conquest of the ancient world. In the days of the Republic and the Empire the highway was bordered with the tombs of Rome's great. A GLIMPSE OF AMALFI, FROM A GRAPE-BOWERED PERGOLA This sun-bathed shelf is part of an old Capuchin convent garden now converted into the grounds of a hotel, which is situated high on a cliff overhanging the blue waters of the Gulf of Salerno (see also Color Plate VII). Gilded palaces rising tier upon tier have seen galleys give way to caravels, caravels to barques, and these in turn to transoceanic steamers in this great harbor, the busiest of all Italy. Until the terrible tragedy of A. D. 79, when Pompeii and Herculaneum were destroyed, Vesuvius was not known to be an active volcano. Since the great eruption of 1631 the cone has seldom been without its rising steam, and often has wrought destruction to neighboring towns. Bordighera's vales are famous for roses. Palm groves, which supply many cities with branches for Palm Sunday and for the Feast of the Tabernacles, have supplanted olive groves in this vicinity. As if holding a torch to the city's loveliness, flaming Vesuvius, a Moloch among mountains, looms ever threateningly less than ten miles away. It has at times scattered its ashes as far as Constantinople, yet a beneficent Fate has always spared the thriving port, with its teeming thousands (see also Color Plate III). |