permessos

The morning dawned bright -- Italian sky, tranquil Italian sea -- and by nine the harbour was alive with small-craft and Portovenere steamboats, all gala with flags; on the land side, too, over the hills, up the old road called Giro della Foce, and before the villages commanding the town, spread a cloud of witnesses; while the multitude in possession of _permessos_ for the dock-region stretched across a hundred and sixty acres, perched on every coign, and murmuring like the sea.

The Lord of the Sea 1906