The villa is almost intact, very strongly built of
purplish marble, though small, and very like a Western house, with
shingles, and three gables, so that I think it must have been the yali
of some Englishman, for it contains a number of English books, though
the only body I saw there was what looked like an Aararat Kurd, with
spiral string wound down his turban, yellow ankle-pantaloons, and flung
red shoulder-cloak; and all in the heavily-wooded park, and all about
the low rock-steps up the hill, profusions of man-dragora; and from the
rock-steps to the house a narrow long avenue of acacias, mossy
underfoot, that mingle overhead, the house standing about four yards
from the edge of the perpendicular sea-cliff, whence one can see the
_Speranzas_ main top-mast, and broken mizzen-mast-head, in her quiet
haven. After examining the place I went down again to the village, and
her house: but she was not there: and two hours long I paced about among
the weeds of these amateur little alleys and flat-roofed windowless
houses (though some have terrace-roofs, and a rare aperture), whose
once-raw yellows, greens, and blues look now like sunset tints when the
last flush is gone, and they fade dun.
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