Dolce Far Niente At Gardone.

As we sweep inland toward the towns, particularly in the neighborhood of Salo, we see a multitude of latticed windows overgrown with honeysuckle, of pretty loggias redolent of flowers, and reminding us of Venice, together with many leafy nooks and long arcades of grapevines lining the sea wall - all seemingly ideal spots for reverie and artistic inspiration. From time to time musicians come on board, to leave at the next station, their music meanwhile echoing softly from the olive-mantled hills. Musical also are the memories of this shore, for it was near Salo that Gasparo, the first Italian maker of the violin, framed sweet-toned instruments. Musical even are the names of all our halting-places, - Maderno, Toscolano, Gargnano, Bar-dolino, Barbarano, and Fasano, - all resonant with the many-voweled cadence of the speech of Italy.

Leaving Gardone's curving pageant of sun, shade, and color, our steamer soon glides by the principal island of the lake, the Isola di Garda. This to the Gardasee is what the Isola Bella is to Lake Maggiore, and the palatial structure which adorns it seems an exemplification of the well-known passage from the "Lady of Lyons":

"A palace lifting to eternal heaven Its marble walls from out a glossy bower Of coolest foliage, musical with birds".

This island, evidently from the earliest times, appealed to the religious instinct which associates ideal beauty with a higher Power. For excavations prove that not alone have splendid palaces and gardens risen, flower-like, from its wave-lapped shore, but that a temple to Olympian Jove once received here men's prayers and praises to the great Creator. But when the inroads of barbarians, more cruel than the winds and waves, had shattered all its buildings with their works of art, the island lay for centuries like a shipwrecked vessel, abandoned either to fishermen or to roving pirates, who divided here their plunder taken from the towns.

After Dinner At Gargnano.

At last, religion once more screened it from man's profanation; and in 1220 St. Francis of Assisi built here, on the foundations of a pagan temple, a Christian monastery, which remained intact till 1797, thus giving to the island for five hundred years the title "Isola de' Frati".

In 1875, however, by special permission of the Pope, it passed into private hands, and is now the property of Prince Scipio Borghese. A closer approach reveals the noble architecture of his home. It is a partial reproduction of the Doges' Palace, if not in its entire form, still in the Gothic arches of its tower and porticos, the perforated quatrefoils above its marble columns, and the triangular crenelation of the roof. The gardens, too, though not so rich botanically as those of Isola Bella, are yet delightful with their wealth of flowers and fruit of gold, lining a labyrinth of shady paths and dainty bridges, interspersed with seats commanding fascinating glimpses of the lake. Can one imagine a more charming summer residence than this ? For here one is sufficiently far from the great world to easily forget it, yet near enough to reach it speedily should necessity arise; and meanwhile is completely separated from its noise and dust, and the intrusion of unwelcome visitors, by such a lovely barrier as the rainbow-tinted Gardasee! Cloistered in cool, artistically furnished rooms and corridors, the owner can look out in all directions upon scenes which are among the fairest that this earth can show. Fanned alternately by the midday and the midnight breeze, he can feel here no inconvenience from the heat; and in his sail boat or steam launch he has the privilege of viewing, at any hour, and as often as he wishes, spots which the ordinary traveler beholds, at best, a few times only in his rapid tour. In brief, I do not know a place on earth where one is likelier to break the tenth commandment than the immediate vicinity of Isola di Garda.

The Isola DI Garda.

The Palace, Isola DI Garda.

The Point Of San Vigilio.