CHAPTER XI
SURRIENTO GENTILE: ITS BEAUTIES AND BELIEFS
I suppose I need remind no one that the coast roads between Castellammare and Salerno are famous round all the world for beauty. No great while ago there were but two. A third has placed herself between them now, and many are the disputes as to which bears off the palm. In these bickerings it is to be feared that the way from Castellammare to Sorrento must needs go to the wall; for indeed it does not possess the grandeur of the others. The northern face of the peninsula has an aspect wholly different from that of the precipices which look towards Pæstum and the islands of the Sirens. It is softer, more exquisitely wooded; its hillsides sink more often into valleys and ravines; its cliffs are certainly not awful; its mountain slopes are sweet and homely, clad with olive groves and pastures, studded with villas and with monasteries. It is a land which lies in the cool shadow of the mountains for full half the day, so that the scorching sun does not strike it until he is well past the middle of his course towards the Tyrrhene Sea.
I left Castellammare on an uncertain morning. Large grey clouds had sunk far down over the green slopes of Monte Faito; even the wooded cone of Monte Coppola had caught a wreath of vapour which lay drifting across the trees with menace of rain and mist. But here and there a gleam quivered on the woods; and presently far-distant Ischia was all a-glimmer, while the dark sea in between flashed into tender shades of blue. Then came the sunlight, warm and soft, casting sharp shadows in the gloomy town, while out on the low road beyond the arsenal the colour of the waves was glorious, and all the long beaches of the curving shore shone like silver. A heavy shower in the night had clogged the level road with white mud. Out of the quarry, half a mile beyond the town, came five men pushing a cart of stones through the slush--swarthy ruffians, clad in blue trousers, with coloured handkerchiefs knotted on their heads. And there, descending by a rocky path from the Monastery of Pozzano, was a solitary monk, with flapping hat, a grey old man with a bleached, sunken face, the very opposite of the bright, lusty day. It is thus, so slow and lonely, that "'O Munaciello" comes, that ghostly monk whom all the children hope and fear to see; for if they can but snatch his hat from off his head, it will bring a fortune with it. But "'O Munaciello" does not come down the mountain paths in this bright daylight; nor is there time to think of spirits at this moment. For the beauty of the road is growing strangely. Round the shoulder of a sheer grey cliff which overtops the road, there is suddenly thrust out into the sea a craggy precipice, in which one recognises the familiar face of Capri, unseen since we passed Torre dell'Annunziata. A moment later a long, sharp promontory like a tooth emerges in the nearer distance. That is "Capo di Sorrento," but one has scarce time to identify it when the far loftier cliff of "Punta di Scutola" appears, dropping from a vast height almost sheer into the sea, while on a nearer and a lower cliff rests the white town of Vico, flashing in the sun.
Among the pleasures of the road it is not the least that the traveller coming from Castellammare, as long as this most lovely scene extends before his eyes, is compelled to saunter. No man may hurry, for the road winds continually upwards, and one pauses, now to look down upon a little beach, where the blue tide washes in over white gravel, now to notice how the slopes are cut in terraces of vines; while in every sheltered cleft the golden fruit of orange trees hangs in the shadow of the brown screens put up to guard them from the sun. The vegetation is extraordinarily rich; as well it may be, for the limestone mountain is overlaid with volcanic tufa for full half its height--though Heaven only knows where the tufa came from. A hundred yards beyond the beach there is once more deep water, dark and unruffled, up to the very base of the high cliff; and further out the sea is stained with turquoise changing into green that recalls in some dim way the colour of a field of flax when the blue flowers are just appearing. But this is fresher, alive with light and sparkles, flashing with the soft radiance of the sky, while the olive woods upon the lofty headland behind the town change from grey to dusk as the shadows of the clouds are flung upon them or dispersed by the returning sun.
Vico, no less than Pozzano, has its miraculous Madonna. She was found long ago by one Catherine, a poor crippled girl, to whom the Virgin appeared in a dream, saying, "Go, Catherine, to the Cave of Villanto, and there, before my image, you will be healed." Now the Cave of Villanto was occupied by cows, and seemed a most unlikely place to contain even the least sacred statue. But Catherine did not stay to reason; she went and found it, was healed according to the promise, and now on the third Sunday in October the image is borne in solemn procession from the Church of Santa Maria del Toro through the streets of Vico, in glorious memory of this striking miracle.
There is no end to these marvels of Madonnas. At Meta, just where the road drops into the plain of Sorrento, an old woman, attending on her cow, was amazed to see the beast drop on its knees in front of a laurel tree. She kicked and poked the creature, but in vain; Colley continued her devotions with placid piety, and the natural amazement of her mistress was increased when she saw a flame spring up at the foot of the tree, in which flame presently appeared not only a statue of the Madonna, but a hen and chickens of pure gold!
It may be mere accident that, while the legend goes on to describe fully what became of the statue, it says nothing more about the golden hen and chickens--worthless dross, of course, yet surely not without some interest for the finder! Perhaps the silence hides a tragedy. It had been prudent if the old woman had allowed no mention of those gewgaws to be made. She was probably a gossip, and could not hold her tongue in season. These are fruitless speculations, and yet I think some charm is added to the loveliest of countries by the knowledge that such gauds as a hen and chickens of pure gold are to be picked up there by the piously observant.
But to return to Vico. I should do that townlet too much honour if I left it to be supposed that its only traditions are concerned with heavenly presences. The truth is otherwise, and it would be improper to conceal it. Vico, indeed, shares with no few other townlets on the peninsula the discredit of having been afflicted sorely by witches. Once upon a time the nuisance grew unbearable. A farm close to the town had long been the centre of uncanny noises, such as terrified the peasants almost to death, and might have gone near to depopulate the neighbourhood had not some very bold people gone over to inspect. There were the witches sure enough. They had bells tied to their heels, and were leaping like monkeys from one tree to another, while the bells tinkled and the air was full of weird noises. Fortunately the investigators carried guns, and the witches, seeing that their enemies were ready to shoot, decided to come down, whereupon they received such a trouncing with sticks that they learnt better manners and left the neighbourhood at peace.
If one is so defenceless, is it worth while to be a witch in Italy at all? The point is arguable, and it is important to be right on it; for many children of both sexes become witches without knowing it, by the mere fact of being born on Christmas night, or on the day of the conversion of St. Paul. If, therefore, the parents do not wish the bairns to retain the _entrée_ of the witches' Sabbath--held always at Benevento--it behoves them to take prompt action. The remedy is simple. You cut a slip of the vine, set fire to one end, and pass it over the child's arm in the shape of a cross. The flame burns out, and Satan's spell is broken.
I do not find anyone who can tell me why the witches have bells on their heels. Bells throughout the peninsula are sacred to Sant'Antuono, called Antonio elsewhere. In old times the bell of Sant' Antuono was carried round from house to house, and mothers would bring out their sucking children to sip water from it, in the hope that they might learn to speak the sooner. Even now a little bell is often hung round a baby's neck, where it serves the purpose of the horn, the half-moon, or the hand with outstretched fingers; that is to say, it keeps off the evil eye. What can there be in common between the babies and the sinful witches that both should be followed by the same tinklings?
Vico, as I have said, lies on a plateau, and when the road has traversed the clean town--how different from the foulness of Castellammare or Nocera!--it drops into a ravine of very singular beauty, a winding cleft which issues from the folds of Faito and St. Angelo, brimming over with vineyards and orange groves, and opening at last upon the sea, where through the soft grey foliage one looks to Ischia, far away across the blue. Having traversed the bridge which spans this shadowy valley, the road mounts again, rising through dense woods of olive, till at last the summit of Punta di Scutola is won, and all the plain of Sorrento lies below.
There is no hour of dawn or dusk in which this view is otherwise than exquisite. In the morning light the plain is full of shadows, for the sun has not yet travelled westwards of St. Angelo, and the mighty mountain towers dark over the whole peninsula. It is the evening sun which shines most beautifully here, and no one who has climbed up this road when the plain is full of soft, gold light, when Ischia turns rosy and the jagged peak of Vico Alvano soars up dark against the pale green sky, is likely to forget it when he thinks of Paradise.
Sorrento lies upon the western side of the plain, almost touching the rim of the mountains that inclose it, so that one has hardly left the streets before the mountains close in and the plain is lost. A little way beyond the houses the hill upon one's left is already high and sheer, a broken outline of sharp limestone jags, clothed with cytisus and broom and slopes of sweet short grass, out of which rings the plashing of a stream, for there has been rain upon the mountains, and all the clefts and runnels are brimming over with fresh fallen water. So one goes on among the whispering sounds of tree and brook until a mightier noise surpasses them, and one pauses at the foot of the ravine of Conca to behold the waterfall.
So high and dark is this ravine that though the sun is almost exactly above it, its light catches only the bushes at the very top, and penetrates not at all into the sheer funnel down which the water plunges, scattered into spray by the force of the descent, until a hundred feet below it drops upon a jut of rock and so pours down in a succession of quick leaps from pool to pool.
It is a wild and beautiful sight to watch the downpour of this water on the days succeeding rain. But in the warm weather the ravine is dry, and an active climber might go up it without much trouble. There is some temptation to the feat; for men say a treasure lies hidden in a cave which opens out of the sheer walls, and the gold is enough to make a whole village rich. If any doubt it, let him go there on the stroke of midnight. As the hour sounds, he will see the guardian of the hoard appear at the top of the ravine, a dark mailed warrior, mounted on a sable steed, who leaps into the gulf and vanishes when mortal men accost him. There was once a wizard living at no great distance from Sorrento whose dreams were haunted by the craving for this treasure. He must have been a half-educated wizard, for he knew no spell potent enough to help him towards his object. One day there came to him three lads who had possessed themselves, I know not how, of a magic book, a work of power such as might have been compiled by the great enchanter, Michael Scot, who toiled in Apulia for the welfare of the Emperor, reading the secrets of the stars with little thought of the pranks that would one day be played on him by William of Deloraine in Melrose Abbey. It is rather odd that though our generation turns out so many kinds of books, both good and bad, it seems unable to produce the magic sort. But the three lads got one, and they brought it to the wizard of Sorrento; and all together one May night, casting a rope ladder into the ravine of Conca, climbed down until they reached the entrance of the cave.
They found it buried in black darkness, and waited there trembling till the grey dawn stole down the rocks, and a gold beam from the rising sun quivered into the mouth of the grotto. As the light shot through the opening, all the treasure-seekers shouted together; for walls and roof were crusted over with gold and gems, and marvellous flashes of soft colour glowed in the heart of rubies and of emeralds. They stood and stared awhile, then one of them tried to break off a mass of jewels, but had no sooner touched it than the rocks rang with a crash of thunder, the magic book whirled away in a livid flame, wizard and lads fled trembling up the ladder. It was a melancholy rout. I fear the party was too large for prudence. The local proverb says, "When there are too many cocks to crow, it never will be day."
A little further up the road a stair ascends the fresh and sunny hillside. It winds upwards through green grasses and grey rocks till it attains a level plateau, where a few olives grow detached and scattered. At that point I turn to look down upon the plain and the long line of cliff which holds the sea in check, so black and sheer, so strangely even in its height. It is still early on this bright mid-April morning, but the sun has force and power, and all the sea is radiantly blue. Immediately below me is a little beach, the Marina Grande, the opening of the westerly ravine, small, yet much the largest which the town possesses, and there most of the boats lie hauled up on the black sand. Another fringe of lava sand runs under the dark cliff below the great hotels. Sometimes in the early morning the traveller, waking not long after dawn, may hear a low monotone of chanting down beneath his window, and flinging it open to the clean salt wind that breathes so freshly over the grey sea dimpling into green, ere yet the sun does more than sparkle on the water, he will see far down below him the barefooted women tugging in the nets, while the fish glitter silvery on the red planking of the boat that rocks on the translucent water twenty yards from shore.
Beyond these beaches the straight sheer cliff sweeps on with what looks like an unbroken wall, though in truth it is gashed by creeks and inlets, while one beach, the Marina di Cassano, has in its time done yeoman's service to the trade of all the plain. There clings to it a tale of witches too. But really, I must turn aside less readily at these beckonings of Satan. Let the witches wait. It is the lava which attracts me now. Anybody else would have noticed it long since, and turned his mind to the wonders of creation first.
Most people expect to have done with volcanoes and their products when they climb up out of the Campagna Felice on to the hillsides of Castellammare. Yet we heard of lava soil at Vico; and here are the lava cliff, the lava sand, and the abounding vegetation just as lush as if Vesuvius, or some other like him, were close behind the hilltop. Was I not told that the peninsula is built of limestone, showing no trace of fire, shaped and chiselled as it stands to-day before the earth's crust broke at any spot in all Campania, or fire burst forth from any fissure? It is limestone too! What other rock could so ridge its precipices, or give so vivid a freshness to the green pastures on its slopes? Whence, then, came the lava?
Well, that is in some degree a mystery. Swinburne, to whose travels I have referred already, thought he had solved it, and declared that the Isles of the Sirens, commonly known as "I Galli," for reasons which we shall come to in good time,--he declared these islands to be nothing but the relics of a crater. The rocks were visited so seldom a century ago that no one could contradict him at the moment. But in Naples a geologist lay waiting disdainfully to demolish him. It was no other than Scipione Breislak, a formidable man of science, and an authority even now, which is something more than can be said of Swinburne. Breislak got a boat and went himself to the Galli to see what nonsense it was that the Englishman had been talking. Alas! he found no trace of fires or crater! Thus one more nail was driven into the coffin of English scholarship, and since that day no one has even guessed where the lava came from.
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 assiduum, 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 passes 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 passed 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 space 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 Pæstum, 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 Pæstum 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 massive 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 space 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 passed so early, and its dukes were tributaries long ere the Normans came and coveted these shores. Yet the ducal days, the "Giorni Ducheschi," are by no means forgotten in Sorrento. Indeed, if their natural glories had passed 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 cock-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 superstition. The higher classes 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 shore. 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 Masses 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 associate 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 passing 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 Tasso, whose tragedy was cast into noble 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. Tasso and Ariosto may have every merit save sincerity; but that is lacking, and Italy has so many noble poets who possess it! I care little for the memories of Tasso, 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 Cassano; 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.
Doubtless the apostle was on his way to Rome. I know no reason why we should distrust the tale that he did indeed pass through this country. The water-way from the East around the coasts of southern Italy is of mysterious antiquity. Pæstum 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 shore 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 passes 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 space 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 crape masks which conceal their faces. Each bears some one among the instruments of the divine passion--the nails, the scourge, and scourging pillar, the pincers--while in their midst rise the heavy folds of a huge crape 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 recumbent 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 passed, 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 Tasso 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.