It is not really a plain, but a gently rising wide and deep lap, surrounded by lofty mountains and ending at a line of sheer cliffs along the sea-front.

A vast garden planted for Nature's joy; a pleasance of the gods; a haunt of the spirit of beauty set between sun-smitten crags and the enchanted shore.
"Heaven be praised that you forced me to come!" muttered Elgar, in his choking throat.
Mallard could say nothing.

He had looked upon this scene before, but it affected him none the less.
They drove into the town of Tasso, and to an inn which stood upon the edge of a profound gorge, cloven towards the sea-cliffs.

Sauntering in the yard whilst dinner was made ready, they read an inscription on a homely fountain: "Sordibus abstersis, instructo marmore, priscus Fons nitet, et manat gratior unda tibi." "Eternal gratitude to our old schoolmasters," cried Elgar, "who thrashed us through the Eton Latin grammar! What is Italy to the man who cannot share our feelings as we murmur that distich?
I marvel that I was allowed to learn this heathen tongue.

Had my parents known what it would mean to me, I should never have chanted my _hic, haec, hoc_." He was at his best this afternoon; Mallard could scarcely identify him with the reckless, and sometimes vulgar, spendthrift who had been rushing his way to ruin in London.