The Naples Riviera Part 3

CHAPTER V

THE CORNICHE ROAD FROM CASTELLAMARE TO AMALFI

It is without any feelings of regret that we learn of the non-existence of a railway line beyond Castellamare, so that our journey to Amalfi along the coast must be performed in the good old-fashioned manner of long-past _vetturino_ days. Three skinny horses harnessed abreast are standing ready at the hotel door to draw our travelling chariot, each member of the team gorgeously decked with plumes of pheasant feathers in his head-gear and with many-coloured trappings, whilst on the harness itself appears in more than one place the little brazen hand, which is supposed to ensure the steed's safety from the dangers of any chance _jettatore_, the unlucky wight endowed with the Evil Eye. Nor is the swarthy picturesque ruffian who acts as our driver unprovided with a talisman in case of emergency, for we observe hanging from his heavy silver watch-chain the long twisted horn of pink coral, which is popularly supposed to catch the first baleful glance, and to act on the principle of a lightning-conductor, in deflecting the approaching danger from the prudent wearer of the coral trinket. Merrily to the sound of jingling bells and the deep-chested exhortations of our coachman do we bowl along the excellent road in the freshness of the morning air and light "through varying scenes of beauty ever led," for the Corniche road towards Amalfi is admitted to be one of the finest in the world. Following the serpentine curves above the cliffs, we have on our right hand the dazzling Mediterranean with cla.s.sic capes and islands all flushed in the early sunshine, whilst above us on the left rise the steep fertile slopes of the Lactarian Hills. Convent and villa, cottage and farmhouse, peep out of embowering verdure, whilst our road is shaded in many places by the overhanging boughs of blossoming almond and loquat trees. The whole region is in truth a veritable garden of the Hesperides, where in the mild equable climate fruit and flowers ripen and bloom without a break throughout the rolling year.

[Ill.u.s.tration: POZZANO]

"Tall thriving trees confess'd the fruitful mould; The verdant apple ripens here to gold; Here the blue fig with luscious juice o'erflows, With deepest red the full pomegranate glows, The branches bend beneath the weighty pear, And silver olives flourish all the year; The balmy spirit of the western gale Eternal breathes on fruits untaught to fail.

Each dropping pear another pear supplies, On apples apples, figs on figs arise; The same mild season gives the blooms to blow, The buds to harden, and the fruits to grow."

A lovely and a fertile scene it is indeed, and thoroughly typical of the peculiar charm of Southern Italy, wherein the rich well-tilled lands appear in striking contrast with the near-lying stony fallows and scrub-covered wastes.

Beneath the picturesque pile of Santa Maria a Pozzano, perched aloft above the roadway, we pa.s.s along the edge of the sea-girt precipice, rounding the Capo d'Orlando, until we reach the pretty little town of Vico Equense, with its churches and gay-coloured villas nestling amidst groves of olive and orange trees. Vico owes its prosperity in the first instance to the patronage of "Carlo il Zoppo," Charles the Dwarf, the lame son and heir of King Charles of Anjou, who founded a settlement and built a villa upon the site of the ancient Roman colony; and it was in the old royal demesne of the Angevins that the hand of the deformed king's daughter, the Princess Clementia, was demanded formally in marriage by the French monarch, Philip the Bold, who sought to marry her to his third son, Charles of Valois. The match between the young prince of France and his cousin, the Neapolitan princess, appeared suitable to all concerned in every respect save one; for it was well known that the King of Naples had been lame from his birth, and it could never be deemed fit for the expected heir of France to marry any but a perfectly sound and healthy bride. Now the Queen of Naples was too proud to accede to the hints of the French ladies, who evidently were most anxious to acquaint themselves with the satisfactory condition of her daughter's "walking members," though she went so far as to allow the maiden to appear before them clad only in a flowing robe of gossamer silk. The possible danger of losing her opportunity to become Queen of France proved, however, beyond the ambitious young lady's powers of endurance, and to the horror of her haughty mother and the delight of the foreign emissaries, the Princess Clementia then and there doffed her silken robes and appeared before all in the historic garb of Lady G.o.diva.

A glance at the princess's form _in puris naturalibus_ sufficed to convince the inquisitive Frenchwomen that no hereditary taint from Il Zoppo descended to his daughter; and accordingly the betrothal of the two young people was celebrated that very evening amidst the usual revels and feastings.

The clean cheerful town on the sheer limestone crags boasts a cathedral, wherein, so the guide-book informs us, we shall find the tomb of Filangieri, the great Italian jurist. But the building contains in reality far more stirring a.s.sociations than those connected with a prominent lawyer. It is but a rococo structure of the usual Italian type, and its painted series of portraits of past bishops is by no means an uncommon complement of cathedral churches in the South. But here, amidst the long rows of indifferent portraits, we note an omission, a s.p.a.ce that is occupied, not by a likeness but by a medallion, which represents a cherub with the forefinger of his right hand laid as a seal of silence upon the lips. Here-by indeed hangs a tale, obscure perhaps, but pathetic and human to the last degree. We all remember the broad frieze filled with Doges'

faces which is carried round the great hall of the ducal palace in Venice, wherein the place a.s.signed to the traitor, Marino Faliero, contains a black veil instead of the usual portrait. Here in little Vico Equense is to be found a somewhat similar incident, but with this important difference:-the bishop whose portrait is here omitted was the most worthy of remembrance of all his peers.

The crime of Monsignore Michele Natale, Bishop of Vico Equense, to which the silent cherub bears everlasting witness, was that of being a patriot and a Liberal (in the truest sense of that term) during the anxious times of the ill-fated Parthenopean Republic, that short-lived period of aristocratic government which was set up in self-defence by certain Neapolitan n.o.bles, prelates and men of science after the abrupt departure of their cowardly King and Queen to Palermo. We all remember the terrible ending of that government: how the vile rabble-army of Cardinal Ruffo a.s.saulted Naples; how the city capitulated to the Cardinal on the express condition that all life and property should be spared; and how Lord Nelson, refusing to recognise the terms that Ruffo himself had agreed to, and overruling the Cardinal's protests, treated the unhappy prisoners. The Bishop of Vico Equense was one of this band of martyrs, for he suffered death under circ.u.mstances of exceptional brutality on the morning of August 20th 1799, in the piazza in front of the church of the Carmine, together with two Neapolitans of n.o.ble rank, Giuliano Colonna and Gennaro Serra, and with the poetess, Eleonora Pimentel, a Portuguese by birth but the widow of a Neapolitan officer. All went n.o.bly to their doom amidst the execrations of the demoralised bloodthirsty mob of _lazzaroni_, yelling at and insulting the "Jacobins," and kept back with no little difficulty by the royal troops from mutilating the corpses of women, bishops and princes. Monsignore Natale himself was hanged, and in his case the public executioner-"Masto Donato" as he was nick-named by the populace-gave vent to many pleasantries concerning the episcopal rank of his victim.

Blindfolded and with the cord of infamy depending from his neck, the Bishop was led up to the fatal ladder amid deafening shouts of

"Viva la forca e Masto Donato; Sant' Antonio sia priato!"

On reaching the top of the gallows, the hangman made fast the rope to the cross-tree, and then an a.s.sistant (_tirapiede_) from below adroitly pushed the unseeing prisoner into s.p.a.ce, catching on to his legs meanwhile, whilst "Masto Donato" himself adroitly leaped from the gallows-top upon the prelate's shoulder. With the hangman on his back, shouting aloud how much he was enjoying his ride upon a real bishop, and with the other ruffian clinging to his heels, Monsignore Natale swayed backwards and forwards amidst yells of execration and gratified hate on that hot August morning in front of the Church of the Carmine little more than one hundred years ago. His body was left on the gallows to be insulted by the mob throughout the long sweltering day, and then, stripped of all its clothing, was finally flung with other corpses of n.o.ble men and women into a charnel-house at Sant' Alessio al Lavinaio. Who it was that placed this quaint little memorial to the murdered prelate in his cathedral church we know not; but here the speechless yet eloquent cherub tells Natale's sad story of brutality and injustice to all who care to listen. Happily the spell of silence is at length broken, and the true history of that hateful era of crime, cruelty, lying, and intrigue is gradually being revealed; and the enemies of the Church in Italy learn with an astonishment, which is perhaps feigned, that in that glorious army of martyrs of 1799 more than one ecclesiastic of high rank suffered in the ill-starred and premature cause of Neapolitan liberty.

Crossing the little river Arco, we proceed uphill through the region of vines and olives, until we have pa.s.sed the Punta di Scutolo, where begins our descent into that famous tract of country, the Piano di Sorrento, a plateau above the cliffs, some four miles in length by one in breadth.

Poets of antiquity and bards of the Middle Ages alike have sung the delights of the Sorrentine Plain, and have painted in glowing colours of inspired verse its race of happy peasants, its fruitful fields and orchards, its luscious vines, its excellent flocks. Galen, the cunning old physician, recommended to his nervous patients what would now be termed a "rest cure" in these favoured regions; whilst the grateful Bernardo Ta.s.so, father of the immortal Torquato, speaks of the capital of this district as "l'Albergo della Cortesia," and in an ecstasy of delighted appreciation, goes on to add: "l'aere e si sereno, si temperato, si salutifero, si vitale, che gli uomini che senza provar altero cielo ci vivono sono quasi immortali." And though praise from Torquato's courtly sire must not be taken too seriously, yet few will deny that the beautiful plain deserves many of the eulogies that have been showered upon it. At the small town of Meta, the next place of importance after Sorrento itself, the road divides at the Church of the Madonna of the Laurel: our way to Amalfi leading southward over the opposing ridge-the "Sorrentini Colles" of Ovid-whilst the other traverses the length of the plain by way of Pozzopiano and Sant'

Agnello, until it reaches Sorrento.

One prominent feature of this district has already attracted our attention; the number of deep ravines with which the whole plain is intersected. These natural clefts are marvellously lovely in their rich luxuriance of foliage, and with their precipitous sides and verdure-clad depths will recall the wonderful _latomie_, the ancient stone-quarries of Syracuse. Their depths are filled with orange and lemon trees, mingled with sable spires of cypress and the tall forms of bays, which here bear jet-black berries, such as are rarely seen in our northern clime; whilst the edges of the cliffs are clothed with a serried ma.s.s of wild flowers; red valerian, crimson snap-dragon, tall blue campanulas, the dark green wild fennel, white-blossoming cistus, and a hundred other plants, gay with colour and strong with aromatic perfume.

"The quarry's edge is lined with many a plant, With many a flower distilling fragrant dew From brightly coloured petals. Almond trees Give snowy promise of sweet leaves and fruit; Here all the scented tangle of the South Covers the boulders, calcined by the sun To pearly whiteness; thorn or asphodel Sprout from each cranny of the topmost ledge To nod against the deep blue sky, or peer Into the verdure-clad abyss below."

It is not surprising to learn that these romantic glens, filled with greenery, are reputed locally to be the haunts of fairies, _Monacelli_, as the Sorrentine inhabitants name them. Like the "good folk" of certain country districts in England, the pixies of Devonshire, and the "Tylwyth Teg" of rural Wales, these elfin people of the ravines are not malicious or unkindly in their nature, but they are particular and somewhat exacting in certain matters. They appreciate the attentions of mortal men, and offerings of fresh milk or choice fruit are not beneath the notice of the Monacelli. Borrowing the idea from the votive offerings they make in the churches to the Virgin and the Saints, the peasants sometimes place little lamps in the fern-draped grottoes of these gullies, and to such as punctually perform these acts of courtesy, the Monacelli frequently show signs of favour. The _padrone_ of a local inn has a.s.sured us that he and his wife stood very high in the good graces of the little people, who had on one occasion actually written them a letter, although as the characters employed were unknown to any person in the village, the object of their communication by this means seems somewhat of a mystery. Another and a more practical instance of their patronage was then related, for the favoured landlord a.s.sured us that on one occasion, when he and his wife descended downstairs in the morning, they found the house cleared, the hearth ready swept, and all the contents of last night's supper-table relaid on the brick floor, but _d'un modo squisito_, such as no human hand could ever have been deft enough to contrive. Just a simple innocent trifle of Sorrentine folk-lore, but how closely does it resemble the old-time gossip of rustic England, of which the great poet has left us so charming a picture!-

"Tells how the drudging Goblin sweat To earn his cream-bowl duly set, When in one night, ere glimpse of morn, His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn That ten day labourers could not end."

For, as we have already said, the Monacelli show themselves grateful to those who antic.i.p.ate their wants, and will serve their votaries with industry and fidelity. _Fuore avra il Monacello in casa_-perhaps he has had the Fairy in the house-has pa.s.sed into a local phrase to designate a neighbour's unexplained prosperity. But, again, the lucky recipient of these favours must never blab or even hint at the origin of his good fortune, for all gossip is highly distasteful to the fairy folk; and that, we suppose, is the true reason why so little authentic information can be gleaned as to the methods of the Monacelli.

In direct contrast with the Monacelli of the ravines, who are, on the whole, well inclined towards mortals, are the Maghe, first cousins evidently to the terrible _ginns_ of Arabian folk-lore; perhaps the Saracenic pirates themselves may have introduced their oriental sprites to the Neapolitan sh.o.r.es. In the popular mind the Maghe are supposed to possess vast treasures hidden in caves by the seash.o.r.e, or on the bleak mountain side, and it was doubtless concerning these spirits that the guide's tale, given in a previous chapter, relates. The most celebrated Maga of all is the demon who haunts a certain underground corridor near Pozzuoli, containing an immense h.o.a.rd of gold and jewels, which he is willing to present to anybody that is ready to give in exchange a new-born baby, presumably for purposes of devouring. Nor was the general belief in the cave-dwelling monster at Pozzuoli limited to the poor peasants and fisher-folk, for rumour persistently a.s.serted that King Francis of Naples, father of Bomba of impious memory, more than once attempted to negotiate with the guardian of this buried treasure; but the Maga's terms, it seems, were too bloodthirsty and extravagant even for a Neapolitan Bourbon to comply with, and in that case they must indeed have been pretty startling.

Malignant fairies are, in short, quite common upon the Sorrentine plain, where exasperated mothers are sometimes in the habit of frightening their squalling children into silence by threatening to introduce them to _Mammone_-perhaps a corruption of the old Greek word _mormo_-a terrible ghost, that must be a near relation to the "Big Black Man" of English nurseries, who is ever ready to carry off naughty boys and girls in his sack.

But the whole of the Sorrentine Peninsula is full of local superst.i.tions, the vast majority of which can easily be traced to the influence of Catholicism, whilst comparatively few seem to be the legacy of ancient Greek or Roman mythology. Belief in witchcraft is universal in these parts, but the witch herself (_strega_) is regarded somewhat in the light of a beneficent "wise woman," who can arrest the far more dreaded spell of the Evil Eye, rather than as the malevolent old hag of bucolic England in the past. Certainly there has never been recorded in Southern Italy any such popular persecution of poor harmless old crones as once disgraced English countrysides; nor has any Italian jurist, like the erudite Sir Matthew Hale, ever condescended to supply legal information concerning the peculiarities of witches, and the best methods of prosecuting and burning them. But the _strega_, though not as a rule dangerous to mankind, provided she be not disturbed or insulted, has the same supernatural power of transit on a broomstick that is possessed by her northern sister. On many a dark night have the peasants crossed themselves with fear on hearing the witches flying through the storm-vexed air to keep their unholy tryst beside the famous walnut tree of Benevento, which has been described for us by the learned Pietro Piperno in his mysterious treatise, ent.i.tled _De Nuce Beneventana_. Even s.n.a.t.c.hes of the witches' song can sometimes be distinguished above the howling of the gale-

"Sott' aero e sopra vento, Sotto la Nuce di Benevento!"

Perhaps it may afford some consolation to those who have a dread of witches that the word "Sabato," solemnly p.r.o.nounced on these awful occasions, is of real service to the utterer; whilst such as have had the good fortune to be born on a Friday in March are permanently placed outside the evil power of their spells, since our Saviour was crucified on a Friday in that month.

But at length we have finished the ascent of the ridge, and our driver halts for a moment at the inn of the "Due Golfi." A smiling damsel, dressed in the picturesque native costume, advances to offer us the national drink of Italy, sweet vermouth that is frothed up with a little fizzing water in a narrow tumbler; and though carriage exercise is not liable to produce thirst, yet we cannot be so churlish as to refuse the draught, especially as the delay allows us to take our farewell look at the Bay of Naples. For here we have reached the peak of the rocky saddle that divides the two famous gulfs; and before us we now behold the wide crescent of the Bay of Salerno with its sunburnt vineyards and its precipitous cliffs. To our right we perceive the craggy headlands stretching southward till they culminate in the Cape of Minerva:-how much more attractive sounds the good old cla.s.sical name than the new-fangled Punta della Campanella, so called from the alarm bell which used to be tolled in the ruined fortress at the approach of the Moslem pirate galleys! Vastly different is the aspect on this side of the peninsula to that which we have just left behind us. There is the plain below us, thickly dotted with farms and villas set amidst crops and orchards, a fertile scene of industry and population; here on the Salerno side are wild stony tracts affording only pasturage for a few sheep and goats, and covered for miles with broom, cytizus, coronella, myrtle, and numberless fragrant weeds, all struggling fiercely for existence on the dry barren soil, and filling the clear air with an incense-like perfume. Such is our first acquaintance with the Costiera d'Amalfi, that wonderful stretch of indented rocky coast-line once containing the Republic of Amalfi, which was the forerunner of the glorious Commonwealths of Florence and Venice.

From the grey cliffs of Capri to the west, as far as the headland beside Salerno, stretched this diminutive state, composed of a confederacy of sister-cities, whereof Amalfi herself was the queen and metropolis. Its glories have long vanished, but the Costiera d'Amalfi remains an enchanted land, not only on account of its natural beauties, but also by reason of its historical a.s.sociations which give an additional charm to every breezy headland and every little town upon this wonderful sh.o.r.e.

Below us, as we rapidly descend the slopes by the curves of the Corniche road, lies the little beach known as Lo Scaricotojo, whence in the days previous to the construction of this splendid highway all visitors were wont to embark for Amalfi;-that is, unless they attempted the expedition by way of the mountain roads leading thither from Castellamare or La Cava.

It raises a smile in these days of swift and luxurious travelling to learn from an early Victorian guide-book that "the most elegible mode of going from Sorrento to Amalfi is either to ride or to be carried in a _chaise a porteurs_ to that part of the Colli where begins a rapid descent, and thence descending on foot to the Marinella of the Scaricotojo on the Gulf of Salerno.... The ride occupies about an hour and a quarter, and the descent which, though steep, is not dangerous, occupies about an hour."

_Nous avons change tout ca_; yet there are still living amongst us those who lament the pa.s.sing away of the old-fashioned days of Italian travel, when inns were bad but picturesque, and expeditions to such remote places as Amalfi were not only difficult but even dangerous; since in compensation for slow progress and risk of brigands every town owned a primitive charm which is now rapidly disappearing before the modern irruption of locust-like swarms of tourists with their motor cars, their luncheon baskets, and their kodaks. Well, to the majority of travellers the value of natural scenery is not a little enhanced by the sense of comfort, and here on the Costiera d'Amalfi the most particular can have no cause to complain, since it is one of the few lovely spots of Southern Europe that has not yet been invaded by the dividend-paying railway. No, the old Republic retains to a great extent its ancient atmosphere of unspoiled beauty and remoteness from the bustling world. It is still a stretch of glorious and historic country wherein one can obtain a pleasant and valued respite for a time from the overpowering improvements of an industrial age.

As we look southward across the breadth of the Bay, our eye is at once caught by the group of the Isles of the Sirens, which, though in reality fully a mile distant from the nearest point of the coast, seem in this clear atmosphere as though they were lying within a stone's throw of the beach. Around these bare bluffs of rock, seemingly flung by the hand of Nature in a sportive mood into the blue waves, lingers one of the most insidious of all the old Greek legends, for it was past these lonely cliffs that the cunning Ulysses sailed during his long career of mazy wanderings in search of his island home and his faithful Penelope. In those days, so the Greek bard tells us, there dwelt upon these islets strange sea-witches with the faces and forms of most beautiful maidens, although their lower limbs had the resemblance of eagles' feet and talons.

Two sirens only, says Homer, dwelt upon these coasts, although later poets have increased the number of the fatal sisters to three or even four.

Singing the most enchanting songs to the sound of tortoise-sh.e.l.l lyres, there used to bask in the sunlight beside the gentle ripple the Sirens, their nether limbs well hidden from the gaze of pa.s.sing seamen, who, attracted by the tuneful notes, hastened hither to discover the whereabouts of the musicians. Innocent eyes, angelic faces, flowing golden locks and white beckoning hands had every power to draw the curious mariner nearer and nearer, until he came within reach of the fell enchantresses. For the Sirens loved the flesh of mortals, and bleached skulls and bones of digested victims lay in heaps upon the sandy floor of their azure-hued caverns. Gold and jewels, too, the spoils of many a brave galley that had been lured to destruction by these charmers, likewise littered their retreat, and perhaps it was as much the glittering of this gold as their own lovely features that in certain cases enticed the wary merchant into this fatal trap. Gold and a pretty face: what male heart could be proof against the double temptation the Isles of the Sirens offered to the navigator in the days of the Odyssey! Only one sailor over these seas proved himself a match for the wiles of the cruel G.o.ddesses of the Amalfitan coast; for Ulysses, as we know, stopped the ears of his companions with wax on their approach towards this dangerous spot, whilst he himself, always eager to hear and see everything yet perfectly well aware of the Sirens' magnetic power, had himself tightly bound by cords to the mast. So whilst the deaf rowers stolidly tugged at their oars, oblivious of the weird unearthly melody around them, the clever King of Ithaca gained the honour of becoming the only mortal who had listened to that subtle song without paying the penalty of a hideous and ign.o.ble death.

It is strangely disappointing to find that no recollection of Sirens or of Ulysses lingers in the lore of the present dwellers upon these coasts.

They have no more notion of the aspect of a Siren than they have of a pleisosaurus, and, as a modern writer navely complains, they are not sharp-witted enough to invent fanciful tales to please the enquiring foreigner. Nor is this lack of intelligence to be wondered at, when we recall to mind the clean sweep of all cla.s.sical learning and tradition which that period of time, truly known as the Dark Ages, made throughout Italy; if Petrarch found it necessary to explain to King Robert the Wise with the greatest tact and delicacy that Vergil was a poet and not a wizard, what must have been the appalling ignorance prevailing amongst the peasant and the fisherman? And yet these barren rocks were known as the Isles of the Sirens centuries before the verses of the Aeneid immortalized the mythic voyage of the Trojan adventurer, who pa.s.sed along this iron-bound coast on his way towards the mouth of Tiber. Their modern, or rather medieval name of I Galli is somewhat of a puzzle. Erudite scholars affect to derive it from Guallo, a fortress captured during a war between King Roger and the Republic of Amalfi, but this explanation, we confess, does not sound very reasonable. Others prefer to imagine that the word Gallo (a c.o.c.k) contains an allusion to the claws and feathers of the Sirens themselves, for certain of the ancient writers endowed these dire Virgins of the Rocks with the wings as well as the claws of birds;-in fact, they represented them as Harpies, those horrible fowls with women's faces that appeared upon the scene at Prospero's bidding to spoil the bad king's supper party. But why, if the Sirens were female,-and on this point all their critics agree with an unanimity that is wonderful-should their ancient haunts be called "The c.o.c.ks?" The untutored natives themselves, understanding nothing of Sirens or of Odysseys, hold their own theory with regard to the disputed name, which they connect with the construction of a harbour at distant Salerno, and though this legend sounds foolish enough, it is scarcely less flimsy than the notions already quoted. A certain enchanter, one Pietro Bajalardo, undertook-in modern parlance, contracted-to build in a single night the much needed breakwater at Salerno on the strange condition that all c.o.c.ks in the neighbourhood should first be killed; for the wizard, so the story runs, had a special aversion to Chanticleer on account of his having caused the repentance of St Peter by his crowing. In any case, the reigning Prince of Salerno gladly complied with the eccentric request, and at his command every c.o.c.k in or near the place was accordingly slaughtered, with the solitary exception of one old rooster, who, being very dear to the heart of his aged mistress, was kept concealed beneath a tub and thus escaped the general holocaust. Throughout the livelong night Bajalardo was busily engaged in superintending the work of building the harbour, whilst the fiends who carried out his behest were actively conveying huge blocks of broken cliff from the Cape of Minerva to place in the waters of Salerno.

But at daybreak the c.o.c.k imprisoned beneath the tub, the sole survivor of his race, according to natural custom announced the dawn, to the despair of Bajalardo and the terror of his attendant fiends, who in their precipitate flight dropped into the sea near the Punta Sant' Elia the huge ma.s.ses of stone they were then carrying; and these rocks are called by men I Galli in consequence to this day.

But, to be strictly impartial, it was not the Sirens alone who were responsible for all the victims who perished on these arid rocks. _h.o.m.o homini lupus_; man is always ready to prey upon man, and many of the dark tales concerning the Galli go to prove the truth of the terrible old adage. At what period the Sirens abandoned their ancient retreat and swam or flew away to more congenial haunts is unknown to history; but certain it is that the rulers of proud Amalfi committed many a cruel deed of murder or torture upon their deserted islets. For here, many a hapless political prisoner languished for years in abject misery, a prey to the heat and glare of summer and to the fierce gales of bitter winter nights.

Rock-cut steps and ruined towers still remain as mementoes of those dark days, when callous human gaolers worthily filled the places of the absent Sirens. It was in a chamber of yonder turret, still standing, that the Doge Mansone II., blinded by a brother's vengeance, dragged out years of utter misery in pain and darkness, until the Emperor of the East, suzerain of Amalfi, at last took compa.s.sion upon the prisoner's wretched plight and allowed him to be removed into honourable confinement at Byzantium. For many hundreds of years the Isles of the Sirens have lain untenanted, nor are they visited nowadays save by a few inquisitive travellers or by the fishermen of the Scaricotojo, who find safe shelter under their lee during the sudden squalls of the Mediterranean. For, strange to relate, there are no dangerous currents, no treacherous whirlpools close to these rocky islets, such as we might expect to give some natural interpretation to the ancient myth, the origin of which remains unexplained and const.i.tutes a very pretty mystery as it stands.

We bid farewell to the group of ill-omened rocks, as we proceed rapidly under the rocky slopes of the Monte di Chiosse towards Positano, which extends in a long curving line of cheerful-tinted flat-roofed houses from the summit of its protecting cliff to the strand below, sprinkled with boats and nets and cloths with heaps of grain a-drying. The descent to the lower portion of the little town is singularly charming with its varied scenery of rocks and hanging woods above us, with the tiled domes of churches outlined against the deep blue waters, and with the whole scene dominated by the pierced crag of Montapertuso, beyond which thrusts up into the cloudless sky the triple peak of the giant Sant' Angelo. Positano is a thriving as well as an ancient place, and of its dense population we have abundant evidence in the swarms of children that pursue our carriage, brown-skinned picturesque little nuisances, shrilly and incessantly crying out for _soldi_. Most of these infants wear bright coloured rags, but not a few are dressed in garments that at once recall the ginger-coloured robes of the Capuchin friars, for the brothers of the Order of St Francis are popularly reputed to be especially competent in keeping aloof evil spells from young persons entrusted to their charge; and of course, argue the doting parents, it is only natural that the spirits of darkness should not dare to molest the little ones tricked out in robes similar to those worn by these holy men.

From the point of view of history the chief interest of Positano centres in the time-honoured tradition that Flavio Gioja, the original inventor of the compa.s.s, was a native of this town, once a flourishing and important member of the group of cities which comprised the Amalfitan Republic in its palmy days. But Clio, the Muse of History, is an inexorable mistress, and she will not rest content with mere hearsay, however venerable, and as a result of careful investigation it would seem that Flavio Gioja, who for centuries has been generally credited with this marvellous discovery, must himself have been a personage almost as mythic as the Sirens of this sh.o.r.e, for his very name is spelled in a variety of ways that is hopelessly confusing. Nor has the question of his place of birth ever been satisfactorily settled, for both Positano and Amalfi claim this hero of science for a son, although only in Amalfitan annals can the disputed name be detected. Be this as it may, it was a citizen of this Costiera who has ever been acknowledged as the inventor of the compa.s.s, though concerning both himself and his alleged discovery there is a complete absence of any contemporary record. Later writers have, it is true, always admitted the honour on behalf of the Republic, and Pontano goes so far as to call Amalfi _magnetica_ in compliment thereof, whilst during the later crusades the Amalfitani, who were evidently convinced of the genuine nature of Gioja's claim, had an heraldic figure of the mariner's compa.s.s emblazoned on their banners. It seems a thousand pities to throw doubt upon so picturesque a tradition, for the date of the invention of the compa.s.s has been fixed as 1302, two years only after the holding of the famous Papal Jubilee in Rome which Dante's verse has described for us. Nor can the ingenious theory be upheld that the fleur-de-lys, the emblem of the French kings of Naples, which still decorates the dial of the compa.s.s in almost all lands, is in any wise connected with Carlo il Zoppo, the monarch to whom Gioja is said to have dedicated his ingenious discovery. No, we have little doubt that the compa.s.s, like so many of the scientific wonders that crept into Europe before and during the time of the Renaissance, was originally brought from the far East, a farther East than the argosies of Amalfi had ever penetrated. The little magic box with its moving needle was first used, it is now admitted, by the cunning merchants of Cathay during their trading expeditions across the stony monotonous plains of Central Asia that lay between the Flowery Land and the civilization of Persia. From Cathay the use of the magnetic needle was introduced to the Arab mathematicians of Baghdad and Cairo, and through them the secret of the lodestone of China was conveyed to the coast towns of the Levant. At Aleppo or Alexandria some astute trader of Amalfi-perhaps his name really was Flavio Gioja-contrived to learn the new method of steering from some Moslem or Jewish merchant, and he in his turn brought this novel and precious piece of information back to the Italian sh.o.r.es. If, then, a native of Amalfi did not evolve the idea of the compa.s.s out of his own brain, at least it was the old Republic which first impressed the Western world with its immense value, and this, too, at a far earlier period than the date usually a.s.signed to Gioja's "discovery." For a Christian bishop of Jerusalem a hundred years before Gioja's day makes mention of the compa.s.s as being in common use amongst the Saracens of Palestine, whilst its existence was certainly known to Brunetto Latini, the tutor of Dante, whom for certain moral failings upon earth his brilliant pupil somewhat harshly places in the infernal regions. History has, in short, long deprived poor disconsolate Positano of its vaunted glory in the production of a medieval scientist whose very existence has now become a matter of speculation.

As we thread our way along the road that curves round headland after headland, and is carried over sheer precipices whose base is lapped by the cool jade-green water, we begin to realize the essential difference between the Sorrentine sh.o.r.es we have left behind us, and the marvellous Costiera d'Amalfi we are now pa.s.sing. Ever green and smiling are the favoured districts that stretch from Castellamare to Ma.s.sa Lubrense, with the mountain tops acting as screens to protect the groves and crops from the sun's ardent rays and with the fresh reviving breezes from the Abruzzi ever breathing upon them. But here we seem to be under the very eyes of the Sun-G.o.d, who stares fixedly from rising to setting upon the Amalfitan coast. Welcome enough is this continuous basking in his smiles during the short winter days; but oh! the long, long summer hours wherein King Helios relentlessly pours down his burning glances upon the shallow soil that covers the rocky face of the Costiera! We who visit the territories of the old Republic in winter or early spring only perceive one aspect of the picture. We rejoice in the gladdening warmth afforded by unbroken sunshine and by the complete absence of cutting winds which Monte Sant' Angelo's towering form excludes from these sh.o.r.es; we note with delight the premature unfolding of buds and blossoms, and we marvel at the young fruit of the dark-leaved loquat trees-the _nespoli_ of the South-turning to pale yellow even in February. But we cannot realise the blinding glare and the torrid heat of a July or August, making a perfect furnace of this sheltered corner, where the thin layer of cultivated soil, that has been sc.r.a.ped together painfully by human hands, becomes baked through and through, when the water-tanks are exhausted, and when the clouds of thick dust hang like a pall of white smoke for miles above the sinuous course of the Corniche road. How close and sweltering must be the atmosphere of these populous coves, when the very waves are flung luke-warm upon the hot sand! How must the inhabitants sigh for a breath of cool air from the Abruzzi, for the zephyr that tempers the heat on the Sorrentine plain!

_Carpe diem_; let us enjoy the Costiera d'Amalfi in the freshness of early spring-time, before the oranges and lemons have been stripped from the leafy groves and before the sun has had time to scorch up the vegetation that now gives colour to every cleft and crevice of the rocky coast-line.

As we advance eastward from Positano we obtain glimpses from time to time of mountain valleys thickly clothed with brushwood, and far above our heads we perceive Agerola perched aloft under the shadow of the topmost crag of Monte Sant' Angelo-Agerola, where wolves still haunt the dim recesses of the chestnut woods, and where the charcoal burners can tell us of the great grey Were-Wolf that prowls round the village on stormy nights. Pa.s.sing the torrent of the Arriengo and the Punta di San Pietro with its lonely chapel looking out to sea; glancing down upon the deep set strand and gloomy caverns of Furore, and rounding Cape Sottile, we find ourselves at Prajano, one of the prettiest spots to be found on all this wonderful coast. Here we stop to visit the church of San Luca, which stands on a little gra.s.sy platform overhanging the sea and commanding a superb view of the Bay of Salerno. It is a baroque structure of the type common everywhere in Italy, which travellers are apt to despise without acknowledging how picturesque this decadent style of architecture can appear. At Prajano the wooden doors of green faded to the hue of ancient bronze, the yellow-washed plaster facade and the lichen-covered tiles of the roof and tower make up a charming ma.s.s of varied colouring when viewed against the broad blue band of sea and sky beyond. Within, the church is mean and tawdry, just a

"Sad charnel-house of humble hopes and crimes, Long dead and buried in obscurity;"

but the afternoon sun struggling through the curtains that cover its fantastic windows allows a mellow light to fill the expanse of the building. A toothless old woman and a young girl, both of them thinly and poorly clad, are the sole occupants of the church, and they are evidently too much absorbed in prayer to notice our presence. They have placed beside the Madonna's altar lighted tapers which glimmer feebly in a shaft of strong sunlight that falls through a rent in the curtain overhead. For what purpose, we wonder, have these candles been bought out of a scanty store! Are they burning on behalf of some sailor-boy now being tossed upon the ocean? Or are they offered to obtain some boon more selfish and less pathetic? At any rate, this pair of intent worshippers, representing fresh Southern youth and crabbed age, make up a pretty picture as they kneel together on the pavement of tiles ornamented in bright rococo patterns to represent the coat-of-arms of some forgotten n.o.ble benefactor: it is too simple and everyday a sight in Italy to offer a theme for verse, too sacred a subject for an idle photograph. We leave the church on tip-toe, and return to the terrace with its low marble seats and its stunted acacia trees to sit a few moments before re-entering the carriage.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EVENING AT AMALFI]

Skirting the Capo di Conca we obtain our first sight of proud Amalfi, and we realize that our drive, long in distance perhaps, but all too short with its varied beauties and interests, is drawing to a close. Nearer and nearer do we approach our goal, the shining turrets of the Cathedral tower acting as our beacon, until at length our chariot clatters beneath the echoing tunnel hewn in the cliff that leads into the town itself.

CHAPTER VI

AMALFI AND THE FESTIVAL OF ST ANDREW

The traveller's first impressions of Amalfi, which is essentially the beauty-spot of the Riviera of Naples, are usually a.s.sociated with the old Capuchin convent, long since turned into a hotel and now the bourne of most visitors to this coast. Its arcaded facade and its terraced garden stand on a plateau seemingly cut out of the sheer face of the cliff, whilst high above the town the lofty barren rocks enfold the Convent and its verdant demesne within a natural amphitheatre and protect this sunny paradise from the keen blasts of winter. A flight of steps zigzagging up the rocky hill-side connects the building with the high road below; whilst a narrow pathway, leading between stone walls and now pa.s.sing beneath dark mysterious archways, wherein the lamps burning before the Madonna's shrines afford a welcome light even at midday, descends by steep gradients from the garden above into the main piazza of the little city. Built by the celebrated Cardinal Pietro Capuano nearly seven hundred years ago for Cistercian monks, the monastery in the sixteenth century came into the possession of the Capuchin Friars, those brown-robed figures that with their bare feet and girdles of knotted white cord are such familiar and picturesque objects in the daily crowds of every Italian town. But the friars have been forced to abandon their airy retreat ever since the suppression of the religious houses, which succeeded the union of the old Neapolitan kingdom with young Italy, and their convent has long been put to secular uses. Yet the old monastic church still exists, and superst.i.tious people declare that the spectral forms of ejected Capuchins are sometimes to be seen advancing slowly up the rocky ascent in order to revisit the sacred building that is now closed for worship. Nevertheless the church is cared for by the members of the Vozzi family, its present owners, who every Christmas-tide still prepare the popular _presepio_, that curious representation of the scene in the stable at Bethlehem, wherein a score of gaily dressed figures of painted wood represent the Holy Family and the worshipping peasants. Little in fact has been changed within the building itself, and the exquisite cloistered court with its slender intertwining Saracenic columns still remains to delight alike the artist and the antiquary. We say "still remains" advisedly; for beyond the tiny quadrangle our eyes at once light upon a scene of hideous devastation.

Doubtless many persons will recall the great land-slip of December 1899, when almost without warning the whole face of the rocky headland that shelters Amalfi on the west tore itself loose and slid with a crash like thunder into the sea below, overwhelming in its fall the little inn known as the "Santa Caterina" and burying in its ruins two English ladies and several fishermen. The sinister scar still continues as a blot upon the lovely landscape, speaking only too eloquently to all of sudden death and destruction amidst the surrounding scenes of life and beauty. The older portion of the Capuchin convent, by a miracle as it were, escaped the on-rush of the land-slide, but its famous "Calvary," the large group of the Crucifixion that appears prominently in so many pictures of Amalfi, was completely swept away, so that the boatmen from the sands below can no longer behold the immense vivid representation of the Last Agony which was wont to greet their upturned eyes. Already Time's kindly hand has begun to drape the scene of the catastrophe with a decent mourning veil of grey and green, for the hardy succulent plants that can withstand the sun's fierce rays and can thrive despite the boisterous salt sea-winds are already sprouting from every crack and cranny of the riven earth. Perhaps it is as well for us selfish and self-satisfied mortals to possess a _memento mori_ close at hand in a spot so teeming with the joy of life; yet somehow the first sight of that ma.s.s of broken headland and the dark ominous fissure in the hill-side, flung across the sunlit scene, is apt to send a slight shiver through the frame of the beholder.