'
Accordingly they proceeded through their valley to the craggy path
which led down to the bay. After passing through a small ravine, the
magnificent prospect opened before them. The sun was yet an hour above
the horizon, and the sea was like a lake of molten gold; the colour
of the sky nearest to the sun, of a pale green, with two or three
burnished streaks of vapour, quite still, and so thin you could almost
catch the sky through them, fixed, as it were, in this gorgeous frame.
It was now a dead calm, but the sail that had been hovering the whole
morning in the offing had made the harbour in time, and had just
cast anchor near some coasting craft and fishing-boats, all that now
remained where Napoleon had projected forming one of the arsenals of
the world.
Tracing their way down a mild declivity, covered with spreading
vineyards, and quite fragrant with the blossom of the vine, the
Herberts proceeded through a wood of olives, and emerged on a terrace
raised directly above the shore, leading to Spezzia, and studded here
and there with rugged groups of aloes.
'I have often observed here,' said Venetia, 'about a mile out at sea;
there, now, where I point; the water rise. It is now a calm, and yet
it is more troubled, I think, than usual.
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