And at Cumae this western tendency of Italy was most pronounced.  On this westmost promontory of the beautiful land—­the farthest point reached by the oldest civilisation of Egypt and Greece—­the Sibyl stood on her watch-tower, and gazed with prophetic eye upon the distant horizon, seeing beyond the light of the setting sun and “the baths of all the western stars” the dawn of a more wonderful future, and dreamt of a—­

    “Vast brotherhood of hearts and hands,
    Choir of a world in perfect tune.”

Cumae is only five miles distant from Puteoli, and about thirteen west of Naples.  But it lies so much out of the way that it is difficult to combine it with the other famous localities in this classic neighbourhood in one day’s excursion, and hence it is very often omitted.  It amply, however, repays a special visit, not so much by what it reveals as by what it suggests.  There are two ways by which it can be approached, either by the Via Cumana, which gradually ascends from Puteoli along the ridge of the low volcanic hills on the western side of Lake Avernus, and passes under the Arco Felice, a huge brick arch, evidently a fragment of an ancient Roman aqueduct, spanning a ravine at a great height; or directly from the western shore of Lake Avernus, by an ancient road paved with blocks of lava, and leading through an enormous tunnel, called the Grotta de Pietro Pace, about three-quarters of a mile long, lighted at intervals by shafts from above, said to have been excavated by Agrippa.  Both ways are deeply interesting; but the latter is perhaps preferable because of the saving of time and trouble which it effects.

The first glimpse of Cumae, though very impressive to the imagination, is not equally so to the eye.  Crossing some cultivated fields, a bold eminence of trachytic tufa, covered with scanty grass and tufts of brushwood, rises between you and the sea, forming part of a range of low hills, which evidently mark the ancient coast-line.  On this elevated plateau, commanding a most splendid view of the blue, sunlit Mediterranean as far as Gaeta and the Ponza Islands, stood the almost mythical city; and crowning its highest point, where a rocky escarpment, broken down on every side except on the south, by which it can be ascended, the massive foundations of the walls of the Acropolis may still be traced throughout their whole extent.  Very few relics of the original Greek colony survive; and these have to be sought chiefly underneath the remains of Roman-Gothic and medieval dynasties, which successively occupied the place, and partially obliterated each other, like the different layers of writing in a palimpsest.  Time and the passions of man have dealt more ruthlessly with this than with almost any other of the renowned spots of Italy.  Some fragments of the ancient fortifications, a confused and scattered heap of ruins within the line of the city walls, and a portion of a fluted column, and a single Doric capital