Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/73

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CHAPTER III.

SANTA TARSILLA was a dreary place midway between Telamone and Orbetello, lying low upon a shore half sand, half swamp, with aloes and sea fennel and the prickly samphire for all its vegetation, and blocks of stone and marble strewn about, some Roman, some Etruscan. There was beauty indeed on its horizon, in the luminous air where the distant snow-peaks of Corsica and the near crags of iron-bound Elba could be seen, with far Capraja and Monte Cristo, and many another island nameless to the world. But to see these it was needful to go a good way out upon the open water; from the little crooked land-locked bay there was little to be discerned save the low pale coast and low red tufa hills that locked in