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CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. CHAPTER II. BETWEEN ROME AND NAPLES l6 CHAPTER III. NAPLES NAPOLI ... 65 CHAPTER IV. EXCURSIONS WEST OF NAPLES. . . . . . .152 CHAPTER V. EXCURSIONS EAST OF NAPLES IQ2 CHAPTER VI. NOLA, AVELLINO, AND BENEVENTUM 247 CHAPTER VII. IN THE ABRUZZI . 26 1 vni CONTENTS. IN APULIA . . . . ... CHAPTER VIII. CHAPTER IX. . PAGE . . 284 IN MAGNA GRAECIA EASTERN CALABRIA . . . . 335 CHAPTER X. IN THE BASILICATA AND WESTERN CALABRIA . . . 359 SICILY . . . CHAPTER XL . . . . . . . .371 CHAPTER XII. SICILY THE EASTERN COAST . . . . ... CHAPTER XIII. 384 GIRGENTI AND THE SOUTHERN COAST . . . . . 457 CHAPTER XIV. PALERMO AND THE NORTHERN COAST ., ... 476 SOUTHERN ITALY. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. THE attractions of Naples and its neighbourhood have always been familiar to travelling Englishmen, but, in publishing a book on the rest of Southern Italy, the author has an uncomfortable sense of sending forth what few will read, and fewer still will make use of on the spot. English travellers nearly always play at follow the leader, and there are probably not two hundred living who have ever explored the savage scenery of the Abruzzi, the characteristic cathe- drals of Apulia, or the historic sites of Magna Graecia. Except the admirable Unter-Italien of Gsell-fells, the Grande Grece of Frangois Lenormant, and the chapters on the Abruzzi, Apulia, and Naples, in the Italian Sculptors of C. C. Perkins, nothing of importance has been written about these places it has not been considered worth while even the beautiful illustrations in Lears Journal of a Landscape Painter have failed to attract a stream of travellers as far south as Calabria. The vastness and ugliness of the districts to betraversed, the bareness and filth of the inns, the roughness of the natives, the torment of zinzare the terror of earthquakes, the insecurity of the roads from brigands, and the far more serious risk of malaria or typhoid fever from the bad water, are natural causes which have hitherto frightened strangers away from the south. But every year these risks are being mitigated, and some of the travellers along the southern railways to Sicily may perhaps now be induced to linger on the way, though, with the single exception of the hotel at Reggio, the inns in Calabria are still such as none but the hardiest tourists, will like to encounter, and all the lower sites are seldom free from fever. There is not, however, the same reason for hurrying through Apulia, which is generally healthy, and where the rapid improvement of the inns will soon permit archeologists to its explore wonderful old cities with comfort. Every year the glorious country between Rome and Naples is becoming better known. All the places near the Eternal City have been already fully described in Days near Rome, but they are more briefly noticed here, as all the cities north ofRome will henceforward be included in Cities of Central Italy. In the towns of the Alban, Sabine, Volscian, and Hernican hills, the accommodation is often poor, but the inns are for the most part clean, and travellers will almost always receive a genial and disinter ested welcome from the kind-hearted inhabitants. The Italy of artists is to be found more amongst these mountain districts than in any other part of the peninsula. Here the costumes still glow with colour, and the wonderful picturesqueness of the towns is only equalled by the exqui- sitebeauty and variety of the scenery. The way in which the national character alters, as Naples is approached, must be incredible to those who have not lived in Italy...