of Capri, and all consist of that southern mountain limestone which changes from pale yellow to blue grey and dusky orange.  A river roars precipitately through the pass, and the roadsides wave with many sorts of campanulas—­a profusion of azure and purple bells upon the hard white stone.  Of Roman remains there is still enough (in the way of Roman bridges and bits of broken masonry) to please an antiquary’s eye.  But the lover of nature will dwell chiefly on the picturesque qualities of this historic gorge, so alien to the general character of Italian scenery, and yet so remote from anything to which Swiss travelling accustoms one.

The Furlo breaks out into a richer land of mighty oaks and waving cornfields, a fat pastoral country, not unlike Devonshire in detail, with green uplands, and wild-rose tangled hedgerows, and much running water, and abundance of summer flowers.  At a point above Fossombrone, the Barano joins the Metauro, and here one has a glimpse of faraway Urbino, high upon its mountain eyrie.  It is so rare, in spite of immemorial belief, to find in Italy a wilderness of wild flowers, that I feel inclined to make a list of those I saw from our carriage windows as we rolled down lazily along the road to Fossombrone.  Broom, and cytisus, and hawthorn mingled with roses, gladiolus, and sainfoin.  There were orchises, and clematis, and privet, and wild-vine, vetches of all hues, red poppies, sky-blue cornflowers, and lilac pimpernel.  In the rougher hedges, dogwood, honeysuckle, pyracanth, and acacia made a network of white bloom and blushes.  Milk-worts of all bright and tender tints combined with borage, iris, hawkweeds, harebells, crimson clover, thyme, red snap-dragon, golden asters, and dreamy love-in-a-mist, to weave a marvellous carpet such as the looms of Shiraz or of Cashmere never spread.  Rarely have I gazed on Flora in such riot, such luxuriance, such self-abandonment to joy.  The air was filled with fragrances.  Songs of cuckoos and nightingales echoed from the copses on the hillsides.  The sun was out, and dancing over all the landscape.

After all this, Fano was very restful in the quiet sunset.  It has a sandy stretch of shore, on which the long, green-yellow rollers of the Adriatic broke into creamy foam, beneath the waning saffron light over Pesaro and the rosy rising of a full moon.  This Adriatic sea carries an English mind home to many a little watering-place upon our coast.  In colour and the shape of waves it resembles our Channel.

The sea-shore is Fano’s great attraction; but the town has many churches, and some creditable pictures, as well as Roman antiquities.  Giovanni Santi may here be seen almost as well as at Cagli; and of Perugino there is one truly magnificent altar-piece—­lunette, great centre panel, and predella—­dusty in its present condition, but splendidly painted, and happily not yet restored or cleaned.  It is worth journeying to Fano to see this.  Still better would the journey be worth the traveller’s while