The Mediterranean: Its Storied Cities and Venerable Ruins Part 12

These physical contrasts are strikingly paralleled in the history of the island. This little speck on the earth's surface, now given up solely to fishing, pastoral pursuits, and the exploitation of tourists, and as little affected by public affairs as if it were in the midst of the Mediterranean, instead of being almost within cannon-shot of the metropolis of South Italy, has pa.s.sed through many vicissitudes, conquered in turn by Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans; under Rome little known and used merely as a lighthouse station for the benefit of the corn-galleys plying from Sicily to Naples, till the old Emperor Augustus took a fancy to it, and used it as a sanatorium for his declining years. Some years later we find this isolated rock in the occupation of the infamous Tiberius, as the seat of government from which he ruled the destinies of the whole empire. Then, to run rapidly through succeeding centuries, we find Capri, after the fall of Rome, sharing in the fortunes and misfortunes of Naples, and losing all historic individuality till the beginning of the present century, when the Neapolitan Gibraltar became a political shuttlec.o.c.k, tossed about in turn between Naples, England, and France; and now it complacently accepts the destiny Nature evidently marked out for it, and has become the sanatorium of Naples, and the Mecca of artists and lovers of the picturesque.

One cannot be many hours in Capri without being reminded of its tutelary genius Tiberius. In fact as Mr. A. J. Symonds has forcibly expressed it, "the hoof-print of ill.u.s.trious crime is stamped upon the island." All the _religio loci_, if such a phrase is permissible in connection with Tiberius, seems centered in this unsavoury personality. We cannot get away from him. His palaces and villas seem to occupy every prominent point in the island. Even the treasure-trove of the antiquary bears undying witness to his vices, and shows that Suetonius, in spite of recent attempts to whitewash the Emperor's memory, did not trust to mere legends and fables for his biography. Even the most ardent students of Roman history would surely be glad to be rid of this forbidding spectre that forces itself so persistently on their attention. To judge by the way in which the simple Capriotes seek to perpetuate the name of their ill.u.s.trious patron, one might almost suppose that the Emperor, whose name is proverbial as a personification of crime and vice, had gone through some process akin to canonization.

Capri, though still famous for beautiful women, whose cla.s.sic features, statuesque forms, and graceful carriage, recall the Helens and the Aphrodites of the Capitol and Vatican, and seem to invite transfer to the painter's canvas, can no longer be called the "artist's paradise." The pristine simplicity of these Grecian-featured daughters of the island, which made them invaluable as models, is now to a great extent lost. The march of civilization has imbued them with the commercial instinct, and they now fully appreciate their artistic value. No casual haphazard sketches of a picturesque group of peasant girls, pleased to be of service to a stranger, no impromptu portraiture of a little Capriote fisher-boy, is now possible. It has become a "sitting" for a consideration, just as if it took place in an ordinary Paris atelier or a Rome studio. The idea that the tourist is a gift of Providence, sent for their especial benefit, to be looked at in the same light as are the "kindly fruits of the earth,"

recalls to our mind the quaint old Indian myth of Mondamin, the beautiful stranger, with his garments green and yellow, from whose dead body sprang up the small green feathers, afterwards to be known as maize. However, the Capriotes turn their visitors to better account than that; in fact, their eminently practical notions on the point appear to gain ground in this once unsophisticated country, while the recognized methods of agriculture remain almost stationary. The appearance of a visitor armed with sketch-book or camera is now the signal for every male and female Capriote within range to pose in forced and would-be graceful att.i.tudes, or to arrange themselves in unnatural conventional groups: aged crones sprout up, as if by magic, on every doorstep; male loungers "lean airily on posts"; while at all points of the compa.s.s bashful maidens hover around, each balancing on her head the indispensable water-jar. These vulgarizing tendencies explain why it is that painters are now beginning to desert Capri.

But we are forgetting the great boast of Capri, the Blue Grotto. Everyone has heard of this famous cave, the beauties of which have been described by Mr. A. J. Symonds in the following graphic and glowing picture in prose: Entering the crevice-like portal, "you find yourself transported to a world of wavering, subaqueous sheen. The grotto is domed in many chambers; and the water is so clear that you can see the bottom, silvery, with black-finned fishes diapered upon the blue-white sand. The flesh of a diver in this water showed like the face of children playing at snap-dragon; all around him the spray leaped up with living fire; and when the oars struck the surface, it was as though a phosph.o.r.escent sea had been smitten, and the drops ran from the blades in blue pearls." It must, however, be remembered that these marvels can only be perfectly seen on a clear and sunny day, and when, too, the sun is high in the sky. Given these favorable conditions, the least impressionable must feel the magic of the scene, and enjoy the shifting brilliancy of light and color. The spectators seem bathed in liquid sapphire, and the sensation of being enclosed in a gem is strange indeed. But we certainly shall not experience any such sensation if we explore this lovely grotto in the company of the noisy and excited tourists who daily arrive in shoals by the Naples steamer. To appreciate its beauties the cave must be visited alone and at leisure.

Those who complain of the village of Capri being so sadly modernized and tourist-ridden will find at Anacapri some of that Arcadian simplicity they are seeking, for the destroying (aesthetically speaking) fingers of progress and civilization have hardly touched this secluded mountain village, though scarcely an hour's walk from the "capital" of the island.

We will, of course, take the famous steps, and ignore the excellently engineered high-road that winds round the cliffs, green with arbutus and myrtle, in serpentine gradients, looking from the heights above mere loops of white ribbon. Anacapri is delightfully situated in a richly cultivated table-land, at the foot of Monte Solaro. Climbing the slopes of the mountain, we soon reach the Hermitage, where we have a fine bird's-eye view of the island, with Anacapri spread out at our feet, and the town of Capri clinging to the hillsides on our right. But a far grander view rewards our final climb to the summit. We can see clearly outlined every beautiful feature of the Bay of Naples, with its magnificent coast-line from Misenum to Sorrento in prominent relief almost at our feet, and raising our eyes landwards we can see the Campanian Plain till it is merged in the purple haze of the Apennines. To the south the broad expanse of water stretches away to the far horizon, and to the right this incomparable prospect is bounded by that "enchanted land" where

"Sweeps the blue Salernian bay, With its sickle of white sand."

and on a very clear day we can faintly discern a purple, jagged outline, which shows where "Paestum and its ruins lie."

In spite of the undeniable beauties of Capri, it seems so given up to artists and amateur photographers that it is a relief to get away to a district not quite so well known. We have left to the last, as a fitting climax, the most beautiful bit of country, not only in the neighborhood of Naples, but in the whole of South Italy. The coast-road from Castellamare to Sorrento, Positano, and Amalfi offers a delightful alternation and combination of the softest idyllic scenery with the wildest and most magnificent mountain and crag landscape. In fact, it is necessary to exercise some self-restraint in language and to curb a temptation to rhapsodize when describing this beautiful region. The drive from Naples to Castellamare is almost one continuous suburb, and the change from this monotonous succession of streets of commonplace houses to the beautiful country we reach soon after leaving the volcanic district at Castellamare is very marked. In the course of our journey we cannot help noticing the bright yellow patches of color on the beach and the flat house-tops. This is the wheat used for the manufacture of macaroni, of which Torre dell'

Annunziata is the great center. All along the road the houses, too, have their loggias and balconies festooned with the strips of finished macaroni spread out to dry. All this lights up the dismal prospect of apparently never-ending buildings, and gives a literally local color to the district.

There is not much to delay the traveller in Castellamare, and soon after leaving the overcrowded and rather evil-smelling town we enter upon the beautiful coast-road to Sorrento. For the first few miles the road runs near the sh.o.r.e, sometimes almost overhanging the sea. We soon get a view of Vico, picturesquely situated on a rocky eminence. The scenery gets bolder as we climb the Punta di Scutola. From this promontory we get the first glimpse of the beautiful Piano di Sorrento. It looks like one vast garden, so thickly is it covered with vineyards, olive groves, and orange and lemon orchards, with an occasional aloe and palm tree to give an Oriental touch to the landscape. The bird's-eye view from the promontory gives the spectator a general impression of a carpet, in which the prevailing tones of color are the richest greens and gold. Descending to this fertile plateau, we find a delightful blending of the sterner elements of the picturesque with the pastoral and idyllic. The plain is intersected with romantic, craggy ravines and precipitous, tortuous gorges, resembling the ancient stone quarries of Syracuse, their rugged sides covered with olives, wild vines, aloes, and Indian figs. The road to Amalfi here leaves the sea and is carried through the heart of this rich and fertile region, and about three miles from Sorrento it begins to climb the little mountain range which separates the Sorrento plain from the Bay of Salerno.

We can hardly, however, leave the level little town, consecrated to memories of Ta.s.so, unvisited. Its flowers and its gardens, next to its picturesque situation, const.i.tute the great charm of Sorrento. It seems a kind of garden-picture, its peaceful and smiling aspect contrasting strangely with its bold and stern situation. Cut off, a natural fortress, from the rest of the peninsula by precipitous gorges, like Constantine in Algeria, while its sea-front consists of a precipice descending sheer to the water's edge, no wonder that it invites comparison with such dissimilar towns as Gra.s.se, Monaco, Amalfi and Constantine, according to the aspect which first strikes the visitor. After seeing Sorrento, with its astonishing wealth of flowers, the garden walls overflowing with cataracts of roses, and the scent of acacias, orange and lemon flowers pervading everything, we begin to think that, in comparing the outlying plain of Sorrento to a flower-garden, we have been too precipitate.

Compared with Sorrento itself, the plain is but a great orchard or market-garden. Sorrento is the real flower-garden, a miniature Florence, "the village of flowers and the flower of villages."

We leave Sorrento and its gardens and continue our excursion to Amalfi and Salerno. After reaching the point at the summit of the Colline del Piano, whence we get our first view of the famous Isles of the Syrens, looking far more picturesque than inviting, with their sharp, jagged outline, we come in sight of a magnificent stretch of cliff and mountain scenery. The limestone precipices extend uninterruptedly for miles, their outline broken by a series of stupendous pinnacles, turrets, obelisks, and pyramids cutting sharply into the blue sky-line. The scenery, though so wild and bold is not bleak and dismal. The bases of these towering precipices are covered with a wild tangle of myrtle, arbutus, and tamarisk, and wild vines and p.r.i.c.kly pears have taken root in the ledges and crevices. The ravines and gorges which relieve the uniformity of this great sea-wall of cliff have their lower slopes covered with terraced and trellised orchards of lemons and oranges, an irregular ma.s.s of green and gold. Positano, after Amalfi, is certainly the most picturesque place on these sh.o.r.es, and, being less known, and consequently not so much reproduced in idealized sketches and "touched up" photographs as Amalfi, its first view must come upon the traveller rather as a delightful surprise. Its situation is curious. The town is built along each side of a huge ravine, cut off from access landwards by an immense wall of precipices. The houses climb the craggy slopes in an irregular ampitheater, at every variety of elevation and level, and the views from the heights above give a general effect of a cataract of houses having been poured down each side of the gorge. After a few miles of the grandest cliff and mountain scenery we reach the Capo di Conca, which juts out into the bay, dividing it into two crescents. Looking west, we see a broad stretch of mountainous country, where

"... A few white villages Scattered above, below, some in the clouds, Some on the margins of the dark blue sea, And glittering through their lemon groves, announce The region of Amalfi."

To attempt to describe Amalfi seems a hopeless task. The churches, towers, and arcaded houses, scattered about in picturesque confusion on each side of the gigantic gorge which cleaves the precipitous mountain, gay with the rich coloring of Italian domestic architecture, make up an indescribably picturesque medley of loggias, arcades, balconies, domes, and cupolas, relieved by flat, whitewashed roofs. The play of color produced by the dazzling glare of the sun and the azure amplitude of sea and sky gives that general effect of light, color, sunshine, and warmth of atmosphere which is so hard to portray, either with the brush or the pen. Every nook of this charming little rock-bound Eden affords tempting material for the artist, and the whole region is rich in scenes suggestive of poetical ideas.

When we look at the isolated position of this once famous city, shut off from the rest of Italy by a bulwark of precipices, in places so overhanging the town that they seem to dispute its possession with the tideless sea which washes the walls of the houses, it is not easy to realize that it was recognized in mediaeval times as the first naval Power in Europe, owning factories and trading establishments in all the chief cities of the Levant, and producing a code of maritime laws whose leading principles have been incorporated in modern international law. No traces remain of the city's ancient grandeur, and the visitor is tempted to look upon the history of its former greatness as purely legendary.

The road to Salerno is picturesque, but not so striking as that between Positano and Amalfi. It is not so daringly engineered, and the scenery is tamer. Vietri is the most interesting stopping-place. It is beautifully situated at the entrance to the gorge-like valley which leads to what has been called the "Italian Switzerland," and is surrounded on all sides by lemon and orange orchards. Salerno will not probably detain the visitor long, and, in fact, the town is chiefly known to travellers as the starting-place for the famous ruins of Paestum.

These temples, after those of Athens, are the best preserved, and certainly the most accessible, of any Greek ruins in Europe, and are a lasting witness to the splendor of the ancient Greek colony of Poseidonia (Paestum). "_Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum_," says the poet, and certainly a visit to these beautiful ruins will make one less regret the inability to visit the Athenian Parthenon. Though the situation of the Paestum Temple lacks the picturesque irregularity of the Acropolis, and the Temple of Girgenti in Sicily, these ruins will probably impress the imaginative spectator more. Their isolated and desolate position in the midst of this wild and abandoned plain, without a vestige of any building near, suggest an almost supernatural origin, and give a weird touch to this scene of lonely and majestic grandeur. There seems a dramatic contrast in bringing to an end at the solemn Temples of Paestum our excursion in and around Naples. We began with the noise, bustle, and teeming life of a great twentieth-century city, and we have gone back some twenty-five centuries to the long-buried glory of Greek civilization.