text:  The sunlight falling on the amphitheatre of hills and touching them with diversities of colour as it fell on their various heights and hollows gave the whole a glittering and fantastic aspect; while the total silence and absence of all look of life except an occasional curl of smoke from some of the scattered cottages along the beach; with the magnificent expanse of the ocean bounding all smooth and blue as a floor of lapis-lazuli completed the character of a scene which might have been in fairyland