"At Florence," according to an Italian saying, "you think; at Rome, you pray; at Venice, you love; at Naples, you look." There is plenty to look at, especially in the evening, when Vesuvius turns rosy and transparent and the sea becomes phosphorescent; and plenty even in the daytime, when you watch

"The blue Mediterranean where he lay Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams Beside a pumice isle in Baia's bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers Quivering within the wave's intenser day, All overgrown with azure moss and flowers." The poets do hit it sometimes. And that is an exact description of Capri. It quivers in the wave's intenser day. As you drive along to Posilippo, the hills of Sorrento seem like phantoms; the vegetation on the hill is gorgeously luxuriant and green; you pass donkey carts laden with bright-coloured fruits; the driver carries a huge yellow or green parasol; every now and then somebody shouts; trams whistle by. It is

hot, swelteringly hot, but freshness comes from the sea. Vesuvius is dormant, but crowned by a little cloud which pretends to be an eruption and is n't.

You are glutted with sunshine and beauty and heat and colour. This is Italy, the quintessence of Italy, a panorama of azure, and sun, and dust. To-day, in any case, there is nothing disappointing about it - and I wish I were going to bathe in the reaches near Posilippo, and to sail in a boat at night and listen to the squealing, love-sick Neapolitan songsters.

When I get back to the ship, the passengers are all looking on at the boys diving for pennies, and carefully distinguishing between copper and silver, under the sea; till at last we leave behind the noise, the chatter, and the importunate vendors who want to sell you opera-glasses for almost nothing, and steam past Vesuvius, Sorrento, and Capri, away into the blue Mediterranean. Addio, Napoli.

Port Said: July 3

WE call for the mails at Taranto and then nothing happens till we get to Port Said — except that the stewards who had never been to sea before have recovered from seasickness, and the passengers are all well enough now to organise games and competitions in order to break the monotony, or to mar the peace (whichever you like), of the voyage.

At Port Said we coal. Black men do it, singing the whole time. When one has seen the black men coal at Port Said one realizes how the Egyptian pyramids were built. I don't mean how the engineering was done, but the kind of way in which the people who had to make bricks without straw set about it; for in the East nothing changes.

Conjurers and fortune-tellers come on board. I have my fortune told. I am amazed by the accurate description of my character and the

probability of the foretold fortune, until a friend of mine has his fortune told, and on comparing notes, we find the man told us word for word the same thing about our characteristics and fortune, past, present, and future. On reflection, I see that the way to tell people's character is to have one list of characteristics and to use it for every one without the slightest variation. It is bound to succeed. For instance, supposing Falstaff and Hamlet had their fortunes told by this Nubian, I imagine he would have told Hamlet's character as follows (I assume Hamlet and Falstaff to be on board incognito): ·

You are not so fortunate as you seem. You have a great deal of sense, but more sense than knowledge. You can give admirable advice to other people. Your judgment is excellent as regards others, but bad as regards yourself. You never take your own good advice. You are fond of your friends. You prefer talk to action. You suffer from indecision. You are fond of the

stage. You are susceptible to female beauty. You are witty, amiable, and well educated, but you have a weakness for coarse jokes. You are superstitious and believe in ghosts. You can make people laugh; you often pretend to be more foolish than you are. At other times you will surprise people by your power of apt repartee. Your bane will be an inclination to fat which will hamper you in fighting. You are unsuccessful as a soldier, but unrivalled as a companion and philosopher. You will mix in high society, and have friends at Court. You will come off badly in personal encounter, and your final enemy will be a king."

Now, imagine him saying exactly the same thing to Falstaff. Does n't it fit him just as well? Can't you imagine Falstaff saying, "He has hit me off to a T," and Hamlet murmuring, "My prophetic soul"? In fact, I believe the profession of a fortune-teller, after that of a hair-specialist, to be the finest profession in the world, and