For a fortnight succeeding our arrival the weather remained calm and bright, so that Uncle Jenico and I were able to explore the locality with great comfort and satisfaction. The coast, which we followed up both north and south for miles, was extremely desolate¹ and unvisited, though bearing at intervals² all along it the traces of former settlements. It would seem to have been quite thickly populated once, during a period which dated probably from the incursions, first, of the Roman legions, and, after, of those salt sea-wolves who preferred squatting³ round the fringes of their conquered island—with the open door of the sea beside them, and its smell in their briny⁴ nostrils—to penetrating⁵ into the traps of the close-shut valleys. Later, Christianity had come to fret⁶ these windy, foam⁷-whipped settlements with pinnacles⁸, and monastic walls, and stone fanes with jewelled windows and airy bell-towers, so that church might peal⁹ to church all down this long front line of the position it had won. But corruption¹⁰ creeping in with prosperity, and lawlessness with the tides, God had withdrawn¹¹ His countenance¹² from the temples that abused His service, and had permitted the ocean to break in their defences and one by one

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