them. The Tuscan smelting furnaces work, it
appears, only six months in the year; and those
who know the expense of lighting a blast-
furnace can readily calculate how destructive such
a system must be to anything like profits.

Another evil is, that the mines were alienated
to a Leghorn company, in 1851, for a term of
years, of which seventeen have still to run. The
Austrian bayonets had propped up the grand-
ducal throne during the troubles of 'forty-eight,
and their help was not given gratis. Who is to make
the improvements during these seventeen years?
Could not the Italian government borrow money
and buy out the shareholders? Unfortunately,
most of the shares have got into the hands of
the grand-duke's family; and they (after their
second exile) are hardly likely to help the King
of Italy out of the dilemma. Meanwhile, it
seems very sad that the new kingdom, which
wants iron-plated ships, rifled cannon, and, above
all, metals for her railways, should have to get
these things from abroad. Only last year a
contractor took twelve thousand tons of rails
from French houses which, use this very Elba
iron. Italy must make these things for
herself, and doubtless she will do so before long. An
Italian company has been started to manufacture
steel wholesale by our Bessemer process.
Now, in a few years, steel will supersede iron
completely. It will be used for boilers, for
rails, for machinery. All iron will not make
good steel; that of Elba is exceedingly suitable
for the purpose. They say that the progress of
the great European nations in iron-working
represents their relative political importance.
Without at all endorsing this statement, we
may say that England, where some of the great
blast-furnaces turn out as much as ninety tons a
day, gives Italy an example herein which she will
do well to follow. Rivalry of this kind would be
truly useful to both nations: we are not so perfect
but that we could learn; truth and chaste
simplicity of design we seem never able fully to
accomplish; here the Italian love of the beautiful
might stand us in good stead.

But we must return for a few moments to
Elba, and just look around us before sailing
away. The island has other mineral riches
besides its iron mines. Being made up chiefly of
granite (of various epochs—granites are not, as
we used to be taught, all of one date), it
naturally furnishes that kaolin which comes from
the decomposed granite rock, of which Cornwall
sends so much to our pottery districts. Here
is another branch of industry ready to the hands
of the emancipated Italians. When we
remember what they did in this way in the middle
ages—how even fayence, common pottery,
takes its name from Faenza—we feel sure the
kaolin will not all be exported. Of course
granite blocks are shipped from Elba, as they were
in Roman times. The island also largely exports
statuary and other marbles: its calcareous
deposits, subjected to the action of the igneous
rocks, have been very generally "altered" into
marble. Thus, all things considered, Napoleon's
little empire was not such a bad place after all.
There are of course many traditions about him
in the island. He was always watching the
roadstead, where there were, naturally enough,
plenty of English cruisers. Yet he was not
idle; he had not lost heart, as at St. Helena.
He found work for his soldiers in making grand
roads along and across the island; he opened
fresh mines; cleared out and put in working
order, old marble quarries; began to excavate on
Monte-Giove, the site of Jupiter Ammon's
temple. The very day that he sailed away he
left special orders with his gardener about altering
certain flower-beds. The people liked him.
"He used to make twenty-franc pieces as common
as half-crowns," said an old cicerone. Yet
they did not cringe to him. "Who is this
Napoleon that he puts us under tribute?" said
the Senate of Capoliberi, when he wanted to
exercise his imperial power of taxing his
subjects. There was very nearly a drawn battle
between the ex-Emperor and the men of the
town, which boasted that it held charters dating
from Roman times. Without exaggeration,
Rio-Marina has parchments of the thirteenth
century. The island has suffered cruelly from
pirates, Saracens, and others, both before and
since Barbarossa's time; and by way of
compensation its rulers, whoever they might be, ruled
lightly, and respected the old privileges of a set
of men who had supplied Italy with iron for some
two thousand five hundred years.

On the whole, Elba is a very interesting place
to visit during a Mediterranean cruise. The
scenery is by no means contemptible; indeed, the
colouring of the bare granite and serpentine
rocks is magnificent—perfectly Oriental in type.
The botanist, too, will find much to interest him;
the island belongs to the same botanical group
with Corsica, Sardinia, and the Balearic Isles—
a link between Italy and Spain. To those who
have seen our own iron districts (and they are
not all who go cruising in the Mediterranean),
it will be interesting to compare our highly
improved methods with the simple plan of operations
adopted here, simple, but wasteful as well.
At Calamita, for instance (which takes its name
from the Italian word for magnetic iron ore—it
was calamite by which the mariners of Amalfi
guided their barks)—at Calamita the ore is
shot down from the rock a height of over sixty
yards on the beach, about half being lost by
rolling away, pounding to dust, falling into the
sea, &c. Strangely enough, the greater number
of the workmen just now are political exiles,
manutengoli di Napoli, the least desperate
among the Calabrian brigands. They were
starving here on the fourpence a day which
government allows them, when it was proposed
that they should be allowed to work in the
mines. The American war was felt even in this
corner of the world. Among the ships of all
nations loading in the roads, there have been
several Yankees whom dread of the Alabama
kept from going into open sea, and who
employed their forced leisure in carrying cargoes
of iron to Marseilles.

Whether Elba will ever deserve again its old