This Is The Last Letter

Bear Mr. Editor : Th? eternal city was 50 miles away when I elosed my last letter. ! öiil not teil, did I, how we went swim ming in the Mediterranean ? "We did at 10 o'clock one moonlight iiigh' when we rode so near the sea tha tho sirens out on their reef, and the roermaids on the imaginary dolphin's tack, and the murmuring, lapping ■naves on the hungry beach all al lured tip and we left our wheels and ciawled down the black roeks to the fceo of diy seaweed which the tide had left and the sun had dried. But ■ sharks !'■ you exclaim. Oh, yes, but we had forgotten about them and they weren't at home. It was a glorious swim. HARD ROADS TO TRAVEL. We reached Civita Yeechia that right and after getting into the slums of the city and being fairly mobbed by 'the roughest element in Italy, we found a respectable lodging anc slept. Early in the morning we Btarted on to make Rome that morning. The famous old Aurelian Way ■B as our road, and at first in the ' dawning hour with the sea by our side, and the black rocks with slimy eaewed, now a charining villa and again ai old ruin, we thought onr oes were over but we soon left the sea, rocks and villas and cntercd upon ■tbebar ren Roman Campagne. The ("iusl was terrible, tho beat "terribilïssimi" and hills unintermittent. Tlie lam' near Rome wavea into iuge bilcivs- ancf they break at last In the sevér historie hills. Hill after hill wr. toileö u]). coasted lor a brief moment and tlien struggled up again. Sisyphui; and the stone he rolled up bill, which always rolled down again, lsn't a parallel to the actual iact of pushing a bieycle up the hills in the infernal plains about Eome. .Sweat rolletí from us until our veins seemed to be as dry as the dust about us, ïherc was no water to be had. Ko houses, no towns, no ruins - even they had vanished from that forlorn region- no people ; all we eould see oji the horizon was St. Peters Jome anti that seemed a mirage, so long ■w: were in reaching it. The man who wiote poetry aibout this campagna deserves the lowest round in Dante's purgatory. "W'e wished more thai once that the geese had not savec1 Rome. "We had for the first time implicit faith in the Eomulus and Eemus and the wolf story. Nothing- hut a she wolf would abide in bucL desolateness and she would take care of the boys just for sociability. These ore the thoughts we indulgid In before seeing the city but the last hili was climbed and the Niobe of natkras- was before us. We shouted for joy and thrilled with trlumpi. Wc lelt a.s great, as proud, and as exalted as eyer Caesar returning from hii. victories. The marble wilderness vtfli ours ; belonged to our eyes at least TUK ETF.R.NAI. CITY. Battle flood, time and Uiv have worked upon tho city's wonders : eo toe the Vandal and the Christian ; 1;:; where they have obliterated a v. orl-. of art, they have left history, romanee and legend until memory anu imagination are overwhelmed by the demanda upon them. But I sbould be writing in blank verse if I continued this strain long. You ■ ïnow what we saw.in Rome. One without imagination would see little more than a quarry in the rum, three huge old water tanks in the Pantheon and Coliseum and i soleum of Hadrian, and an old church I ■with about half a mile of useless 1 columns in a circle around the front dooryard, would adequately describe í Si. Peters íor him. Well we had f ircagination and we grew poetic, imstic and eloquent at proper times. We got ambitious and ascended St. Peter's dome and you arn't very far fioir the owners o{ Golden Gate when yor are at the top. The guide book n, akes you cliase around after a lot of fountalns, and old remains o! walls. 'Jher. we did the Sistine chapel, a room liko a huge coffin box and fully &s dark and gruesome, but with some o.' the world's rarest art gems paintei upon its walls. Likewise the Yatica and its sculpture and painting. Our hotel in Rome, when the name f:n! situation are translated, was the Hotel of the Sun," in the piazza of Taradise. Now when we were di ven out of Paradise we went to Naples and that is THE DEVIL'S OW CITY. After getting our bikes on board the 'TVerra," the boat on which we were t return to America, we pent a day in Naples. We had made a duty deposit on our wheels when we en tcieC Italy and were to get it back v ht-i: wo should leave. Such a time :;s we had getting that money. Every custom house officer told ns to go to somebody elsa and at last I v-as ordered to get the signature of an ofticer who was somewhere in the bay of Naples. There were only 5,fO(' boats and ships there. I got tlK; service of au oarsman who knew. tb ? oflicer and we started upon our quost. He rowod around every individual boat in Naples bay but we did r-i fiud the officer. Tlien I became desperate and told a head officer at 1lu, custom house that it was au outiage to dally so about a plain ma i : er E'.u. I made some vague threats about the 1'. S. consul. Thereupon he signeil my paper, willen ha misjht have de .110 y hours before, and I received ruy money. Then we began .■ see-ing. In Naples that consista hiefly in watcnihg the people. Boys as olt! as twelve roil in the dirt, naked ïi; the street. Older boys have a rag whicli passes over the shoulder lid holds up a pair of trousers which ave nelther definite división íor the og-.s nor the completeness of a skirt. rxi Naples your business is everybody's bus-iness. If you turn a corner some cue runs and grasps your shoulder and with frantic gesticulations incims you that that isn't the way. 0 he way to Avhat ?" you ask. "Why to where you are going." "But I am not going anywhere," you rep'y- "Well that isn't the way anyicw.' In the early morning on the ollowing day we saw milkmen going aiound with cans and goats and milkïiK them before the doors of customeis Gladly we escaped the dirt, ce and annoyances of Naples and boarded the tender which soon eonyed ue to the ""Werra." ON THE DEEP BLUE SEA. Trom the deck as the boat ieft the. ay we took a last look at Yesuvius moking trauquilly in the -llstance. V! passed the isle of Capri and soon, x-cept the faint blue of the mountainous coast, there was nothing' but that larvelous scintlUating blue of the lediterranean all about us. ight amc and passed and with the dawn -n began to see the faint Une of lint beautiful Riviera, the .-cast hicli flanka Genoa east and west. 1 on we were 'entering the bay amid ;: forest of masts and a wilderness (.i cranes and through the web of i O) dage we eould see Genoa with its white buildings and dlrb.. It is built iipon a mountain-side and from the seo iooks like half of a great aïnphithcatre. There wo lay three days and with the ship as our stronghold tv e, in company with two other dmerican boys, made sallies up into Gcnoa wher? we saw Columbus' monument and innumerable palaces and ,made life a burden for liackmen, v hom we never intended to patronym but with whom we haggled and bartered then decided not to indulge, lo their disguste Tlien the hour , :[' departure, and throng of fat and i ;ieasy Genoese came to the wliarf to ' see their friends in the steerage sail. ! SVe got out to sea at mid-day, and j that evening- could you endure the deseription of JUST ONB MORE SUNSET? As the Run disappeared the whole sea froni the horizon to the vessel's ú(: had a role of gold. Above this vut: a red stained cloud. Th en al most magically the golden robe wa vilhdrawn and soon was enchant iugly epread. Th is in time Heemcc torn into strips and between the lineb oí gold were lines of cerulean blue l'inally the wind seemed to blo-w avay the gilded film and that sof Mediterranean blue lay like a richly 1'Uecadet1, silk. In the sky there was :: gold rayed fan upon which colore came and went as if vibrations of the pendulum of beauty, Tliere, it was i ot so bad ; or did you skip it ? Wo passed the Balearle Islands witl their rocky, seamed and convolutec cliíís. The shore looks as crude as If just from the Creator's hand. Then the coa.st of Spain, a stern and rocky Buccession of headland's, presenting a dark, rude and forbidding shore anii behind were snov capped moun taina. África too was sighted a1 l&sl ; a long low shore rising just cpposite Gibraltar to a mountain peale. Gibraltar iteelf is a stupendouf' rock which we approached irom 1he rear and then rounded to where wi; saw the long stone seawall and tne white and yellow houses above it, on above burned vegatations and at the suminit the broken ledge of the lofty ridge. The boat stopped live or six hours there and then SET SAIL FOR AMERICA. We began to make acquaintanccs and worried out the creeping hours rUudying them. There was a lady ■Kho wanted a "price list of the passengers" and whose sympathy went cu', te the steward in the following beautiful phrase "I should think the ■wa.iters would get tired a brinin of. grubs to the womins." Then the taby faced innocent man who isn't helpless at all, Uut insista that he is. H o had crossed a dozen times and yet couldn't sleep nights for lear the boat wat; going down. He wondered wliy motion oï the screw wasn't utiüzec! for making ice cream or butter. 'Ai: it does now is to make this boat go,' he added, naively. A great cause of the sea was the water in it ; so he wisely concluded. Thie fellow was always "surprised" and ■ clead with frig-ht" at every new event en board. He called all the men ■u niters "Marys" and some -'queer Marys." He had lived everywheie fcui years and when wepassed ainong the Azores he described bis ilweUiDg in each village tliat we sighted on ili' isiaiid sliores. Then there was tb; shij;'s l,;mcl which tortured us fioir. mom tül dowy eve. nioy did ï.o'. mind wkether they were in tijie os long as they made noise enough. i mus icri4 were Xour vonjeu aii(! txvo parróte in one state re om, and then set my friend and Q'jseÜ safely on land, thank.you for watching our travels with kindly intciest and close.