Naples Past and Present Part 13

What may be regarded as fairly certain, however, is that it was not ejected on this spot. The Piano di Sorrento, sweet country of perpetual summer, of which more truly than of many parts of Italy, the poet might have written--

"Hic ver a.s.siduum, atque alienis mensibus aestas,"

is in no danger of being blown to fragments. Perhaps the lava came from some volcanic outburst under the sea, from some islet formed and washed away again--it matters little. Somewhere underneath the soil lies the clean, firm limestone, and the volcanic matter, whencesoever it came, did no more than fill a hollow of the hills, and turn it into the loveliest valley in the world. Sorrento, the very name whispers of smiles and laughter, and the people, softening it still with the incomparable music of their speech, modulate it into "Surriento," just as they turn "cento" into "ciento," and drop a liquid vowel into the harshness of Castellammare, calling it "Castiellammare." "Surriento!"

How it trembles on the air! Had ever any town a name so fit for love!

And was any ever set in a fairer country? It is a plain, yet no monotony of level, for a spine of the encircling hills tilts the gardens to the evening sun, while the shadow of the mountains wards off the fierce glare of the heat till long past noon. And what fertility! Is there on the surface of the earth such a lush wild glade of orange groves, three generations, "father, son, and grandson," as the Sorrentines say, hanging on a single tree; while as they hang and ripen, the scented flowers are continually budding in the shadow of the dark green leaves, and every waft of air is sweetened by the fragrance of the blossom. But at Surriento all the airs are sweet. If they do not blow across the orange groves they carry down the scent of rosemary and myrtle from the mountains, which are knee-deep in delicious scrub; or they come off the sea in sharp, cool breezes, bringing the gladness and fresh movement of the deep, scattering the stagnant heats and making all the plain laugh with pleasure in the joy of life. How long the lovely summer lasts at Surriento, and how short are the bad winter days! "A Cannelora," say the peasants, "state rinto e vierno fora!" What is "Cannelora"? It is the second day of February, when England still has full three months of winter! Then it is that summer returns to the Piano di Sorrento and chases winter away across the hills. Is it true? "Chi lo sa." Perhaps not quite, but what of that? The Sorrentines themselves have another saying, which runs thus: "A neve 'e Marzo nu' fa male,"--that is, "Snow does no harm in March." So the summer which comes at Cannelora is not incompatible with snow! Yet even in fibs there must be probability, or where would be the use of them? To declare that an English summer began at Cannelora would be simply dull.

The plain, I say, is not one unbroken level, nor is it wide enough to be monotonous. One cannot look out far in any direction over the olive woods which like a soft grey flood surge over the fertile country, without being checked by the cool, shadowy mountains, St. Angelo vast and lovely, Vico Alvano thrusting up an almost perfect cone; and many another peak showing towards Sorrento a slope of crag and pasture-land which on its other face drops in sheer precipices to the Gulf of Salerno. One knows that from the summit of the ridge there is an outlook over both the gulfs; and from my post, here on the hillside known as Capo di Monte, I can see the red monastery called the Deserto, because it was indeed erected in a solitary waste, where the soul of man might hope to tread down underfoot him who, in the language of the place, is rarely spoken of by name, but indicated more gently as "Chillo che sta sotto San Michele"--"He who lies beneath St.

Michael."

The pleasantest way to the Deserto is on foot. One goes on up the stairs from Capo di Monte, stopping gladly enough to chaffer with the children who offer flowers or early fruits, and are contented with so very little coin in exchange, then climbing on past hillside cottages and orange groves within high walls, which only now and then admit a glance across the sea to Vesuvius smoking, or the blue hills beyond Nola so far away, until at last the stairs are left behind and one pa.s.ses on through vineyards into a wood which occupies the higher slopes of the open hillside, a mossy, fragrant wood, whose spring foliage is not yet so dense as to bar the sunlight from the anemones, lilac and purple, which grow in profusion out of the trailing ivy and the dead leaves of last year's fall. After the wood, the gate of the Deserto is close at hand: it gives access to a straight, steep drive, at the end of which stands a tower overtopping a red group of buildings, and on it the words--

"Ego vox clamantis In Deserto Tempus breve est."

An old monk admitted me, and without waste of words, pointed out the staircase which gave access to the upper story. He did not offer to accompany me, but went back along the silent corridor like a man contemptuous of earthly things, even of the immeasurable beauty which lay stretched out on every side of that high eminence. So I went up the stairs alone, listening to the echoes of my feet, until I came to a doorway whence I pa.s.sed out on the wall which surrounds the garden quadrangle; and here I turned instinctively to seek for Capri, unseen since the glimpse I caught of its high precipices on approaching Vico Equense.

Looking northward from the monastery wall I had the island on my left, the sheer cliff called the Salto turned towards me, the island rocks of the Faraglioni standing out distinctly, the little marina sparkling in the sun, while high above it, like an eagle's nest, towered the crags of Anacapri and Barbarossa's castle. The morning sun had transformed the island wondrously. Grey and green by nature, some suffusion out of the warm sky had showered down deep purple on it, and from end to end it lay glowing with the colour of an evening cloud.

Whence that light came was a marvel that I could not guess; for the nearer slopes of Punta di Campanella caught not a trace of it, but ravine and mountain pasture lay there in the sunlight grey and green as ever, while across the narrow strait Capri had all the tremulous beauty of the coasts of fairyland. Far away northwards, across a s.p.a.ce of the loveliest sea imaginable, lay the craggy peak of Ischia, the low reef of Procida, and the mountains of the Campanian coast; while on the hither side of that blue land of cloudy peaks the sun had flung a heavy shadow over Monte Sant'Angelo, and all his towering slopes lay black and lurid.

The southward view is scarcely so fine. For the Deserto is built on the Sorrento side of the ridge, so that even from its roof one surveys a part only of the vast waters which owned the domination of Salerno, of Amalfi, and in far older days submitted to the rule of that great city Paestum, whose shattered temples are still, unto this day, a prouder relic than any left by the commonwealths which rose in later times upon the gulf. One looks across the blue moving waters towards the flat where Paestum stood. Behind it rise the mountain peaks in long succession, flashing here and there with fields of snow, while further off, scarce seen by reason of its distance, the headland of Licosia marks the limit of the bay.

Such is the Deserto, a solitude among the mountains. When I came down once more into the cool corridors, the old monk acknowledged my benefaction with a solemn bow, but let me go without a word. Silence hung over the building like a spell. It played its part in the great charm and beauty of the spot; and I was well content that nothing broke it. It was past noon, and the sun was dropping westwards. All the hillsides were glowing in gold light. The budding woods, so shadowy as I climbed up, were full of glimmering radiance; and as I descended further, and all the plain lay before me, its olive woods, its orange groves, and the long line of white villas cresting the black cliff were suffused in one wide glory of warm colour. As I went across the bridge into the city, I turned off from the main street, and found what is left of the old wall, guarding the ancient ducal domain, though indeed one might have thought the deep ravines had fenced it sufficiently on three sides, while on the fourth the sea protects it strong and well. The gates have gone, under which in the old days of festival, when Carnival pranced up and down the streets, the grisly figure of death, "la morte di Sorrento," used to lurk, waiting to mow down the rioter as the hour struck which marked the approach of Lent. But there is still enough left of the ma.s.sive fortifications to show that a rich city once occupied this site.

It is a pleasant spot at this hour of evening shadows. The deep ravine is filled with the whispering echoes of a stream, which does not fill the bottom of the hollow, but leaves s.p.a.ce for orange groves, deep thatched with boughs. Cottages are built out on jutting rocks, overhanging the precipice with strange indifference to the probable results of even little earthquakes; and the lanes are alive with brown, half-naked children. The sheer rocky chasms, the swarming population, the ancient walls, recall memories of an older Sorrento than one can recover easily upon the sea-front, or in the tortuous streets which skirt it. One sees here the system of defence, and can believe that in its day Sorrento was a fortress, though its great days of independence pa.s.sed so early, and its dukes were tributaries long ere the Normans came and coveted these sh.o.r.es. Yet the ducal days, the "Giorni d.u.c.h.eschi," are by no means forgotten in Sorrento. Indeed, if their natural glories had pa.s.sed out of mind, the nocturnal ramblings of Mirichicchiu would serve to refresh the memory of every man and child, terror being, as Machiavelli puts it, a better remembrancer than love.

Mirichicchiu, "the little physician," was a dwarf. He lived in the time of the dukes, and was unwise enough to conspire against his lord, who promptly cut his head off and caused the body to be thrown into the fields outside the castle walls, where its several parts appear to have been dispersed by the operations of husbandry, since Mirichicchiu to this day has not been able to recover them.

Night by night he goes searching up and down the fields, stooping with a lantern over the clods, until the c.o.c.k-crow frights him back to the place from whence he came. Sometimes the lonely little dwarf will go up to a cottage and tap at the door. When that light knocking rings through the startled house the inmates know that Mirichicchiu is hungry, and they prepare his breakfast. The dish must be cooked specially for him, and no one else must taste it. If he finds it to his mind he leaves coins in the plate.

There can, I think, be few districts in which the folklore is richer or more romantic than in this region of Sorrento. The peasants are soaked in superst.i.tion. The higher cla.s.ses are scarce more free from it. Those who loiter at midnight near the Capo di Sorrento, whither every tourist goes to see the ruins of the Villa Pollio and the great cool reservoir of sea-water known as "Il Bagno della Regina Giovanna," may see a maiden clad in white robes rise out of the sea and glide over the water towards the Marina di Puolo, the little beach which lies between the Punta della Calcarella and the Portiglione. She has scarce touched land when she is pursued by a dark rider on a winged horse, who comes from the direction of Sorrento, and hunts her shrieking all along the sh.o.r.e. There are spectres on every cliff and hillside, witches on the way to their unhallowed gatherings at Benevento, and wizards prowling up and down in the shape of goats or dogs. At night the peasants keep their doors and windows closed; if they do not, the Janara may come in and cripple the babies. You may sometimes keep out evil spirits by setting a basin full of water near the door; the fiends will stop to count the drops, which takes a long time, probably enough to occupy them until day drives them home.

If anyone be out after dark it is better not to look round. The risk is that one may be turned into stone.

Here and there one may see ruined churches in the country, but no peasant will go near them after nightfall; for he knows that spectral Ma.s.ses are celebrated there, solemn services chanted by dead priests, who are thus punished for neglect of their offices in life, and whose congregation is made up of worshippers who forgot their religion while they lived.

The Italian fancy begets things terrible more easily than it conceives a lovely dream. Even the tales of fairies turn more readily on fear than on the merry pranks with which our northern legends a.s.sociate the dwellers in the foxglove bells. But on a fine spring evening, when the sun is glowing over the plain, there are pleasanter things to think of in Sorrento than the spirits of the other world. I turn gladly away from the ravines into the broad main street, and pa.s.sing by the cathedral, pause in the piazza, where the life of the pleasant little town is busiest and gayest. It is here that one should call to mind the poet Ta.s.so, whose tragedy was cast into n.o.ble verse by Goethe; for his statue stands in the square, looking down gravely on the rows of vetturini cracking whips, the children coming or going to the fountain, the babble of strange tongues from lands which never dreamt of Surriento when he dwelt on earth. But I think the days are gone in which English people can delight in the sixteenth-century poets of which Italy was once so proud. Ta.s.so and Ariosto may have every merit save sincerity; but that is lacking, and Italy has so many n.o.ble poets who possess it! I care little for the memories of Ta.s.so, save in Goethe's verse, and as I go down to the marina it is of older visitors, welcome and unwelcome, that my mind is full--St. Peter, for example. There is a constant legend that he came this way after the death of Christ, landing perhaps from some galley of Alexandria that touched here on its way to Pozzuoli, and set down the apostle to win what souls he could among the rough dwellers in the mountains. The saint preached his first sermon by the roadside near Sant'Agnello, a village between Sorrento and the Marina di Ca.s.sano; and then went over the hills towards Castellammare, where he rewarded the hospitality of the dwellers at Mojano, near the roots of Faito, by making springs of water gush out of the thirsty rock.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NAPLES--COURTYARD IN THE OLD TOWN]

Doubtless the apostle was on his way to Rome. I know no reason why we should distrust the tale that he did indeed pa.s.s through this country. The water-way from the East around the coasts of southern Italy is of mysterious antiquity. Paestum was a mighty trading city many centuries before St. Peter lived, and its sailors may well have inherited traditions of navigation as much older than their day as they are older than our own. I do not know whether it was indeed upon the islands under the Punta di Campanella that Ulysses, lashed to the mast, heard the singing of the Sirens, but the tradition is not doubted in Sorrento; and without leaning on it as a fact, one may recognise at least that the tale suggests the vast antiquity of trade upon these waters. Else whence came the heaps of whitening bones of lost sailors, among which the Sirens sat and sang? Here year by year we learn more of the age of man, and of the countless centuries he has dwelt by the sh.o.r.e of the great deep. We cannot tell when he first adventured round the promontories with sail and oar; but it is safe to believe that those early voyages were made unnumbered centuries before any people lived whose records have come down to us, and that those sailors whom we discern when the mists are first lifted from the face of history were no pioneers, but followed in a well-worn track of trade, beaten out who knows how long before their time.

It is said that in old days the city of Sorrento stretched farther out to sea than it does now. The fishers say they could once go dryfoot from one marina to the other. There are ruins underneath the water.

The two small beaches have but cramped accommodation now, and if trade settled there, as it did in the days of Tiberius, a harbour of some sort must have existed. A city on the coast may last without a harbour which has once brought it consequence; but would it have grown without one to a place of power? It is profitless speculation, perhaps. But no one wandering along these coasts, which played so great a part in early maritime adventure, can easily refrain from wondering at the tricks of destiny which brought the stream of commerce now to one spot, now to another; and then, wresting away the riches it had given, left the busy quays to silence, and made one more city of the dead.

The hotels which line the summit of the cliff conceal the remnants of great Roman villas. The Hotel Vittoria is built over one of the finest. On that spot, in 1855, were found the remains of a small theatre, destroyed to make the terrace of the hotel. The tunnel by which one goes down to the sea is the same by which the Roman lord of the mansion descended to his boat. Beneath the Hotel Sirena there are large chambers which once formed part of such another villa. I cannot tell how many other traces of old days may be left scooped out of the black rock.

As the dusk descends upon Sorrento, and the sea turns grey, the narrow, tortuous streets resume an appearance of vast age. They are very silent at this hour; the shops are mostly closed; the children hawking woodwork have gone home. One's footsteps echo all down the winding alleys, and the tall houses look mysterious and gloomy. Such was the aspect of the town on the evening of Good Friday, when I took my stand in the garden of the Hotel Tramontano to see the procession of our Lady of Sorrows, who, having gone out at daybreak to seek the body of the Lord, has now found it, and is bearing it in solemn mourning through the city streets.

Along the narrow lane which pa.s.ses the hotel a row of lamps has been set, and little knots of people are moving up and down, laughing and jesting, with little outward recognition of the nature of the rite.

The procession has already started; it is in a church at the further end of the long alley, and every ear is strained to catch the first sound of the chanting which will herald its approach. Wherever the houses fall back a little the s.p.a.ce is banked up with curious spectators. Some devout inhabitant hangs out a string of coloured lamps, and is rewarded by a shower of applause and laughter, which has scarcely died away when a distant strain of mournful music casts a hush over the throng. Far down the alley one sees the glittering of torches, and a slow, sobbing march, indescribably weird and majestic, resounds through the blue night, with soft beat of drum and now and then a clash of cymbals. Very slow is the approach of the mourners, but now there is no movement in the crowd. Men and children stand like ranks of statues, watching the slow coming of the torches and the dark waving banners which are borne behind them.

So the heavy rhythm of the funeral march goes up into the still air, knocking at every heart; and after the players, treading slow and sadly, come the young men of Sorrento, two and two, at wide intervals, hooded in deep black, their eyes gleaming through holes in the c.r.a.pe masks which conceal their faces. Each bears some one among the instruments of the divine pa.s.sion--the nails, the scourge, and scourging pillar, the pincers--while in their midst rise the heavy folds of a huge c.r.a.pe banner, drooping mournfully from its staff. Next comes a silver crucifix raised high above the throng, and then, as the head of the procession winds away among the houses, the throbbing note of the march changes to a sweeter and more plaintive melody, while from the other hand there rises the sound of voices chanting "Domine, exaudi." In a double choir come the clergy of the city and the country round, all robed in solemn vestments, and between the two bodies the naked figure of our Lord is borne rec.u.mbent on a bier, limbs drawn in agony, head falling on one side, pitiful and terrible, while last of all Our Lady of Sorrows closes the long line of mourners.

When she has pa.s.sed, silence drops once more upon the dusky alleys.

Far off, the sound of chanting rings faintly across the houses, and the slow music of the march sighs through the air. Then even that dies away, and on the spot where Ta.s.so opened his eyes upon a troubled world there is no sound but the wind stirring among the orange blossoms, or the perpetual soft washing of the sea about the base of the black cliffs.

CHAPTER XII

CAPRI

It is a common observation among those who visit Capri that the first close view of the island is disappointing. The distant lights and colours are all gone. The cliffs look barren. The island has a stony aspect, inaccessible and wild. The steamer coming from Sorrento reaches first the cliff of the Salto, concerning which I shall have more to say hereafter, and only when that tremendous precipice has been rounded does one see the saddle of the island, a neck of land which unites the two mountain peaks so long watched from the mainland, a continuous garden, at the head of which stands the town of Capri, while the Marina is at its foot.

It must be admitted that the landing-place of Capri is on the way to lose its quaintness, and is even in some danger of taking on the aspect of an excursionists' tea-garden. Hotels and restaurants spring up on every side, and a broad, winding road has been carried in long convolutions from the sea up to the town. Capri is striving hard to provide conveniences for her visitors, and no longer conducts them up the hill by the ancient staircase, which was good enough for friends and enemies alike in all ages till our own, and is still so broad and easy that a donkey can go up it with less distress than it will experience on the hot and dusty road. However, the staircase is still there, and as it is my odd whim to care nothing for the nice new road, but to prefer entering Capri by the old front door, I consign my luggage to the strapping, stout-armed sirens who pounced upon it as soon as the landing-boat touched sh.o.r.e, and go up the cool and shadowy steps between walls of ivy and deep-rooted creepers, over which the budding vines project their tendrils, and blossoming fruit trees send a drift of petals falling on the stair. From time to time I cross the noisy road, and go on in peace again with greater thankfulness, till, after some twenty minutes' climb, I emerge beneath an old vaulted gateway, from the summit of which defence unnumbered generations of Capriotes must have parleyed with their enemies, fierce Algerines, followers of Dragut or of Barbarossa, merciless sea-wolves who descended on this luckless island again and again, attracted, no doubt, by its proximity to the wealthy cities of the mainland and the streams of commerce which were ever going by its sh.o.r.es.

The gate is flung wide open now, and the group of women sitting in its shadow eye the coming stranger with a friendly smile. I step out of the archway on to the Piazza, the prettiest and tiniest of squares, bordered with shops on two sides. On the third side stand the cathedral and the post office, while the fourth is occupied by a wall breast high, over which one may look out across the fertile slopes bounded by the huge cliffs of Monte Solaro all burning in the midday sun.

From the Piazza two or three arched openings give access to narrow, shady lanes. One of these is the main street of the town, and meanders down the opposite side of the saddle, pa.s.sing Pagano's Hotel and the "Quisisana," whereof the former is as old as the fame of the island among tourists; for they, although the great interest and beauty of Capri were well known, came here rarely before the discovery of the Blue Grotto caught the fancy of all Europe. I shall not go to see that marvel of the world to-day, for the hour of its greatest beauty is past already; and I will therefore spend the hours of heat in setting down how the grotto was recalled to memory some seventy years ago by August Kopisch. The story is sold everywhere in Capri, but as it happens to be written in German, hardly any English visitors take the trouble to look at it.

There can be no doubt that when Kopisch landed in Capri during the summer of 1826 the blue grotto was practically unknown. There are, it is true, one or two vague pa.s.sages in the writings of early topographers--Capaccio, Parrino--which appear to be based upon some knowledge of it; and it is said that in 1822 a fisherman of Capri had dared to enter the low archway. If so, he kept his knowledge to himself; for when Kopisch landed, and went up the old staircase to Pagano's Hotel--a humble hostelry it was in those days!--he knew nothing of the grotto, and his host, though very ready to talk about the wonders of the island, required some pressing before he would explain the hints he dropped of an enchanted cave below the tower of Damecuta, a place which boatmen were afraid to visit in broad day, and which they believed to be the habitation of the devil. "But I," went on Pagano, "do not believe that. Many times, when I was a lad, I begged friends of mine, who were strong swimmers, to swim into the cavern with me, but in vain; the fear of the devil was too strong in them! But listen! I once learned from a very aged fisher that two hundred years ago a priest swam with one of his colleagues a little way into the cave, but turned and came out at once in a terrible fright; the legend says that the priests found the entrance widen out into a vast temple, with high altar, set round with statues of the G.o.ds."

Pagano's story fell on the enthusiastic fancy of the young German artist like flint on steel, and the Capriote, catching his guest's excitement, went on to say that he himself believed the tower of Damecuta to be a relic of one of the palaces built by the Emperor Tiberius, who constructed no pleasure-house without a secret exit.

Might not the hidden way go through the grotto? And if so, what strange things might they not find if they dared explore it! Perhaps a temple of Nereus, the shrine of some sea deity, left unworshipped and forgotten through all the ages since the Roman Empire fell!

Both men had heart for the adventure, undismayed by prophecies of mischief from devils, mermen, or sea monsters, though quaking secretly at the recollection of the sharks, which, however, rarely come close into sh.o.r.e. Wondrous tales were told them of things seen near the fabled grotto. Sometimes the frightened fishers had watched the glow of fire from within trembling on the waves. Beasts like crocodiles were seen to look in and out; seven times a day the entrance changed its shape and windings; at night the Sirens sang there among dead men's bones; the screams of little children in agony rang often round the rocks, and it was no uncommon thing for young fishermen to disappear in the neighbourhood of the ill-famed cavern. Many an instance could be quoted, and one tale in particular was brought up to show how mad they were who loitered on that sea. A fisherman went out to spear fish near the grotto. It was a lovely morning, and he could distinguish the sh.e.l.lfish creeping on the bottom, though the water was ten fathoms deep. Suddenly he saw all the fish scurry away into hiding, and just underneath his boat came swimming in concentric circles a vast sea monster, rising at each turn nearer and nearer to the surface. The fisher was uneasy, but instead of calling on the Madonna as a Christian would, he trusted in his own strength, and hurled his spear at the monster in the devil's name. He saw it strike the creature's neck, but from the wound there came such a gush of blood as clouded all the water so that he could see nothing. He thought joyfully that he had killed the fish; but the thong of his spear hung slack, and when he pulled it in the point of the harpoon was gone--not broken off, but fused, as if it had been thrust into a furnace!

The poor fisherman, terrified to death, dropped the spear and seized his oars, longing only to get away from that accursed place. But row as he might he could not progress. His boat went round in circles, as the sea monster had swum, and finally stood still as if anch.o.r.ed, while out of the reddened water rose a bloodstained man, with the spear sticking in his breast, and threatened the fisher with his fist.

The poor man sank down fainting, and when he came to life again he was being tended by his friends at the Marina of Capri. For three days he was dumb. When he could speak and tell what had befallen him he began to shrivel up. First his right hand withered, then his arms and legs, till finally, when he died, he had lost the aspect of a man, and was like nothing but a bundle of dried herbs in an apothecary's shop.

Such were the tales with which the Capriotes sought to dissuade Kopisch from paying heed to the suggestions of Pagano, but in vain.

Early in the morning the party started, having with them Angelo Ferraro, a boatman, with a second boat in which they had packed a small stove, with all the materials necessary for kindling a fire.

When they came to the low entrance of the cave not one of them was quite at ease, and Kopisch, who was in the water first, begged Angelo, the boatman, for a fresh a.s.surance that sharks never came between the rocks. Angelo was labouring to kindle his fire, and gave a hasty confident reply, which provoked the German to the natural reflection, "It's all very well for him to be sure. His legs are in the boat!"

But when the resinous wood shavings caught and blazed up brightly all fear was gone. Angelo pulled in under the low archway, pushing the smaller boat with the lighted stove before him. Close behind came Kopisch, Pagano, and a second German traveller, half blinded by the smoke which blew back in their faces, and full of natural excitement and anxiety concerning what might befall them in this bold quest. For a time they could see nothing save a dim, high vault; but when Kopisch turned to look for his companions he, first of all men of our age and knowledge, saw that sight which for absolute beauty and wonder has no superior in all the world.

"What a panic seized me," he says himself, "when I saw the water under me like blue flames of burning spirits of wine! I leapt upwards, for, half blinded as I was by the fire in the boat, I thought first of a volcanic eruption. But when I felt the water cold I looked up at the roof, thinking the blue light must come from above. But the roof was closed.... The water was wonderful, and when the waves were still, it seemed as if I were swimming in the invisible blue sky...."

I have told this adventure at some length because, in mere justice, Kopisch and Pagano ought not to be forgotten by the crowds of pleasure seekers who visit Capri, and for whom, however much or little they may take pleasure in the other immense beauties of the island, the Blue Grotto still remains the chief delight. It may not be necessary to claim for Kopisch that he was indeed first of all men to see its marvellous beauty; nor even that, but for his bold adventure, its low gateway would have remained closed to all the world. Discoveries such as this are made at their appointed time, and Kopisch may perhaps have had precursors. But it remains true that his audacity first threw wide the gate for us; and for my part I acknowledge gladly a deep debt of grat.i.tude.

No wise man goes to the Blue Grotto from the steamer by which he travels from Naples or Sorrento. When one has crossed the ocean, and journeyed thousands of miles, to see a sight so wonderful, why should one be content to hurry round it in the few minutes given by a boatman eager for other fares? There is but one way to see the Blue Grotto, and that is by hiring a boat at the Marina on a still, sunny morning, bargaining carefully that there shall be no compulsion to leave before one wishes. Then as the boatman rows on slowly beneath the luxuriant vineyards and the green slopes of the saddle of the island, he will point out the baths of the Emperor Tiberius, low down by the sh.o.r.e, indeed, partly covered by the clear green water, and will go on to talk of the strange life led by the imperial recluse, who studded the island with palaces and left it teeming with unsolved mysteries.

Twelve villas he built, so says Tacitus, upon this narrow s.p.a.ce, and in these solitary palaces by cliff and sh.o.r.e he lived a life of nameless tyranny and wickedness. Who can tell the uses of the strange ma.s.ses of broken masonry which one finds in climbing up and down the lonely cliff paths? With what object did he build tower and arched vault in spots where only sea-birds could have the fancy for alighting? What secret chambers may not still be hidden in these ruins! What pa.s.sages leading deep into caverns of the hillside! What mysteries! What treasures for those who have the heart and courage of the German artist! Such are the suggestions of the brown-faced boatman bending towards me across his oars, while in a hushed whisper he points out now one and now another chasm of the limestone which gives access, so he tells me, to a cavern of unmeasured size. And still, as he talks eagerly and low, the sheer cliff rises higher and darker overhead; for the saddle of the island is long past, the towering precipices of Monte Solaro are above me, and high up on some eyrie which the sight straining from the water cannot reach is the white mountain town of Anacapri.

Presently the coast-line sinks to a more moderate height. The tower of Damecuta is seen ahead, and below it a stair, cut in the face of the rock, leads down to a low arched opening, through which the blue sea is washing in and out. A couple of women in gay dresses are sitting in the shade upon the stair. A few boats are rocking on the blue water, strangely, intensely blue, even in the morning shadow which the cliffs fling out across the sea. It was not the rich, royal colour which one may see about the sh.o.r.es of western England, nor yet the exquisite soft turquoise which glows by all the bays and headlands of this coast, but a darker and more watery blue, verging on indigo rather than on any other single colour.

The boat approached the opening. The boatman, warning me to lie flat in the stern, shipped his oars, grasped a chain which was fastened to the rock, and, at the lowest point of the wet, winding entrance, flung himself backward on my body, while the boat shot into what for an instant seemed a moonlit darkness. But on struggling up erect I became conscious of a strange, milky radiance, which grew and brightened as the sight adjusted itself, until I saw that the waves washing round the boat were of a silvery blue, which is like nothing else, lambent, incandescent, flashing with the softest glow imaginable. One thinks of the shimmering flashes in the heart of an opal, of the flame of phosphorus, of the most delicate colour on a blue bird's throat--there is no similitude for that which has no match, nothing else upon the earth which is not gross when set beside these waves of purest light, impalpable, unsubstantial, and radiantly clear. "Che colore?" I asked in wonder; and the boatman, no less awed by the strange beauty, answered very low, "Il cielo," and sat silent, stirring his oar gently, so as to make spouts of light among the blue reflections.