Chapter 75

The ascent is easy at first between walls and the vineyards which produce the celebrated Lachryma Christi. After a half hour we reached and began to cross the lava of 1858, and the wild desolation and gloom of the mountain began to strike us. One is here conscious of the titanic forces at work. Sometimes it is as if a giant had ploughed the ground, and left the furrows without harrowing them to harden into black and brown stone. We could see again how the broad stream, flowing down, squeezed and squashed like mud, had taken all fantastic shapes,--now like gnarled tree roots; now like serpents in a coil; here the human form, or a part of it,--a torso or a limb,--in agony; now in other nameless convolutions and contortions, as if heaved up and twisted in fiery pain and suffering,--for there was almost a human feeling in it; and again not unlike stone billows. We could see how the cooling crust had been lifted and split and turned over by the hot stream underneath, which, continually oozing from the rent of the eruption, bore it down and pressed it upward. Even so low as the point where we crossed the lava of 1858 were fissures whence came hot air.

An hour brought us to the resting-place called the Hermitage, an osteria and observatory established by the government. Standing upon the end of a spur, it seems to be safe from the lava, whose course has always been on either side; but it must be an uncomfortable place in a shower of stones and ashes. We rode half an hour longer on horseback, on a nearly level path, to the foot of the steep ascent, the base of the great crater. This ride gave us completely the wide and ghastly desolation of the mountain, the ruin that the lava has wrought upon slopes that were once green with vine and olive, and busy with the hum of life. This black, contorted desert waste is more sterile and hopeless than any mountain of stone, because the idea of relentless destruction is involved here. This great hummocked, sloping plain, ridged and seamed, was all about us, without cheer or relaxation of grim solitude. Before us rose, as black and bare, what the guides call the mountain, and which used to be the crater. Up one side is worked in the lava a zigzag path, steep, but not very fatiguing, if you take it slowly. Two thirds of the way up, I saw specks of people climbing. Beyond it rose the cone of ashes, out of which the great cloud of sulphurous smoke rises and rolls night and day now. On the very edge of that, on the lip of it, where the smoke rose, I also saw human shapes; and it seemed as if they stood on the brink of Tartarus and in momently imminent peril.

We left our horses in a wild spot, where scorched boulders had fallen upon the lava bed; and guides and boys gathered about us like cormorants: but, declining their offers to pull us up, we began the ascent, which took about three quarters of an hour. We were then on the summit, which is, after all, not a summit at all, but an uneven waste, sloping away from the Cone in the center. This sloping lava waste was full of little cracks,--not fissures with hot lava in them, or anything of the sort,--out of which white steam issued, not unlike the smoke from a great patch of burned timber; and the wind blew it along the ground towards us. It was cool, for the sun was hidden by light clouds, but not cold. The ground under foot was slightly warm. I had expected to feel some dread, or shrinking, or at least some sense of insecurity, but I did not the slightest, then or afterwards; and I think mine is the usual experience. I had no more sense of danger on the edge of the crater than I had in the streets of Naples.

We next addressed ourselves to the Cone, which is a loose hill of ashes and sand,--a natural slope, I should say, of about one and a half to one, offering no foothold. The climb is very fatiguing, because you sink in to the ankles, and slide back at every step; but it is short,--we were up in six to eight minutes,--though the ladies, who had been helped a little by the guides, were nearly exhausted, and sank down on the very edge of the crater, with their backs to the smoke. What did we see? What would you see if you looked into a steam boiler? We stood on the ashy edge of the crater, the sharp edge sloping one way down the mountain, and the other into the bowels, whence the thick, stifling smoke rose. We rolled stones down, and heard them rumbling for half a minute. The diameter of the crater on the brink of which we stood was said to be an eighth of a mile; but the whole was completely filled with vapor. The edge where we stood was quite warm.

We ate some rolls we had brought in our pockets, and some of the party tried a bottle of the wine that one of the cormorants had brought up, but found it anything but the Lachryma Christi it was named. We looked with longing eyes down into the vapor-boiling caldron; we looked at the wide and lovely view of land and sea; we tried to realize our awful situation, munched our dry bread, and laughed at the monstrous demands of the vagabonds about us for money, and then turned and went down quicker than we came up.

We had chosen to ascend to the old crater rather than to the new one of the recent eruption on the side of the mountain, where there is nothing to be seen. When we reached the bottom of the Cone, our guide led us to the north side, and into a region that did begin to look like business. The wind drove all the smoke round there, and we were half stifled with sulphur fumes to begin with. Then the whole ground was discolored red and yellow, and with many more gay and sulphur-suggesting colors. And it actually had deep fissures in it, over which we stepped and among which we went, out of which came blasts of hot, horrid vapor, with a roaring as if we were in the midst of furnaces. And if we came near the cracks the heat was powerful in our faces, and if we thrust our sticks down them they were instantly burned; and the guides cooked eggs; and the crust was thin, and very hot to our boots; and half the time we couldn't see anything; and we would rush away where the vapor was not so thick, and, with handkerchiefs to our mouths, rush in again to get the full effect. After we came out again into better air, it was as if we had been through the burning, fiery furnace, and had the smell of it on our garments. And, indeed, the sulphur had changed to red certain of our clothes, and noticeably my pantaloons and the black velvet cap of one of the ladies; and it was some days before they recovered their color. But, as I say, there was no sense of danger in the adventure.

We descended by a different route, on the south side of the mountain, to our horses, and made a lark of it. We went down an ash slope, very steep, where we sank in a foot or little less at every step, and there was nothing to do for it, but to run and jump. We took steps as long as if we had worn seven-league boots. When the whole party got in motion, the entire slope seemed to slide a little with us, and there appeared some danger of an avalanche. But we did n't stop for it. It was exactly like plunging down a steep hillside that is covered thickly with light, soft snow. There was a gray-haired gentleman with us, with a good deal of the boy in him, who thought it great fun.

I have said little about the view; but I might have written about nothing else, both in the ascent and descent. Naples, and all the villages which rim the bay with white, the gracefully curving arms that go out to sea, and do not quite clasp rocky Capri, which lies at the entrance, made the outline of a picture of surpassing loveliness. But as we came down, there was a sight that I am sure was unique. As one in a balloon sees the earth concave beneath, so now, from where we stood, it seemed to rise, not fall, to the sea, and all the white villages were raised to the clouds; and by the peculiar light, the sea looked exactly like sky, and the little boats on it seemed to float, like balloons in the air. The illusion was perfect. As the day waned, a heavy cloud hid the sun, and so let down the light that the waters were a dark purple. Then the sun went behind Posilipo in a perfect blaze of scarlet, and all the sea was violet. Only it still was not the sea at all; but the little chopping waves looked like flecked clouds; and it was exactly as if one of the violet, cloud-beautified skies that we see at home over some sunsets had fallen to the ground. And the slant white sails and the black specks of boats on it hung in the sky, and were as unsubstantial as the whole pageant. Capri alone was dark and solid. And as we descended and a high wall hid it, a little handsome rascal, who had attended me for an hour, now at the head and now at the tail of my pony, recalled me to the realities by the request that I should give him a franc. For what? For carrying signor's coat up the mountain. I rewarded the little liar with a German copper. I had carried my own overcoat all day.

SORRENTO DAYS

OUTLINES

The day came when we tired of the brilliancy and din of Naples, most noisy of cities. Neapolis, or Parthenope, as is well known, was founded by Parthenope, a siren who was cast ashore there. Her descendants still live here; and we have become a little weary of their inherited musical ability: they have learned to play upon many new instruments, with which they keep us awake late at night, and arouse us early in the morning. One of them is always there under the window, where the moonlight will strike him, or the early dawn will light up his love-worn visage, strumming the guitar with his horny thumb, and wailing through his nose as if his throat was full of seaweed. He is as inexhaustible as Vesuvius. We shall have to flee, or stop our ears with wax, like the sailors of Ulysses.

The day came when we had checked off the Posilipo, and the Grotto, Pozzuoli, Baiae, Cape Misenum, the Museum, Vesuvius, Pompeii, Herculaneum, the moderns buried at the Campo Santo; and we said, Let us go and lie in the sun at Sorrento. But first let us settle our geography.

The Bay of Naples, painted and sung forever, but never adequately, must consent to be here described as essentially a parallelogram, with an opening towards the southwest. The northeast side of this, with Naples in the right-hand corner, looking seaward and Castellamare in the left-hand corner, at a distance of some fourteen miles, is a vast rich plain, fringed on the shore with towns, and covered with white houses and gardens. Out of this rises the isolated bulk of Vesuvius. This growing mountain is manufactured exactly like an ant-hill.

The northwest side of the bay, keeping a general westerly direction, is very uneven, with headlands, deep bays, and outlying islands. First comes the promontory of Posilipo, pierced by two tunnels, partly natural and partly Greek and Roman work, above the entrance of one of which is the tomb of Virgil, let us believe; then a beautiful bay, the shore of which is incrusted with classic ruins. On this bay stands Pozzuoli, the ancient Puteoli where St. Paul landed one May day, and doubtless walked up this paved road, which leads direct to Rome. At the entrance, near the head of Posilipo, is the volcanic island of "shining Nisida," to which Brutus retired after the assassination of Caesar, and where he bade Portia good-by before he departed for Greece and Philippi: the favorite villa of Cicero, where he wrote many of his letters to Atticus, looked on it. Baiae, epitome of the luxury and profligacy, of the splendor and crime of the most sensual years of the Roman empire, spread there its temples, palaces, and pleasure-gardens, which crowded the low slopes, and extended over the water; and yonder is Cape Misenum, which sheltered the great fleets of Rome.

This region, which is still shaky from fires bubbling under the thin crust, through which here and there the sulphurous vapor breaks out, is one of the most sacred in the ancient world. Here are the Lucrine Lake, the Elysian Fields, the cave of the Cumean Sibyl, and the Lake Avernus. This entrance to the infernal regions was frozen over the day I saw it; so that the profane prophecy of skating on the bottomless pit might have been realized. The islands of Procida and Ischia continue and complete this side of the bay, which is about twenty miles long as the boat sails.

At Castellamare the shore makes a sharp bend, and runs southwest along the side of the Sorrentine promontory. This promontory is a high, rocky, diversified ridge, which extends out between the bays of Naples and Salerno, with its short and precipitous slope towards the latter. Below Castellamare, the mountain range of the Great St. Angelo (an offshoot of the Apennines) runs across the peninsula, and cuts off that portion of it which we have to consider. The most conspicuous of the three parts of this short range is over four thousand seven hundred feet above the Bay of Naples, and the highest land on it. From Great St. Angelo to the point, the Punta di Campanella, it is, perhaps, twelve miles by balloon, but twenty by any other conveyance. Three miles off this point lies Capri.

This promontory has a backbone of rocky ledges and hills; but it has at intervals transverse ledges and ridges, and deep valleys and chains cutting in from either side; so that it is not very passable in any direction. These little valleys and bays are warm nooks for the olive and the orange; and all the precipices and sunny slopes are terraced nearly to the top. This promontory of rocks is far from being barren.

From Castellamare, driving along a winding, rockcut road by the bay, --one of the most charming in southern Italy,--a distance of seven miles, we reach the Punta di Scutolo. This point, and the opposite headland, the Capo di Sorrento, inclose the Piano di Sorrento, an irregular plain, three miles long, encircled by limestone hills, which protect it from the east and south winds. In this amphitheater it lies, a mass of green foliage and white villages, fronting Naples and Vesuvius.

If nature first scooped out this nook level with the sea, and then filled it up to a depth of two hundred to three hundred feet with volcanic tufa, forming a precipice of that height along the shore, I can understand how the present state of things came about.

This plain is not all level, however. Decided spurs push down into it from the hills; and great chasms, deep, ragged, impassable, split in the tufa, extend up into it from the sea. At intervals, at the openings of these ravines, are little marinas, where the fishermen have their huts' and where their boats land. Little villages, separate from the world, abound on these marinas. The warm volcanic soil of the sheltered plain makes it a paradise of fruits and flowers.

Sorrento, ancient and romantic city, lies at the southwest end of this plain, built along the sheer sea precipice, and running back to the hills,--a city of such narrow streets, high walls, and luxuriant groves that it can be seen only from the heights adjacent. The ancient boundary of the city proper was the famous ravine on the east side, a similar ravine on the south, which met it at right angles, and was supplemented by a high Roman wall, and the same wall continued on the west to the sea. The growing town has pushed away the wall on the west side; but that on the south yet stands as good as when the Romans made it. There is a little attempt at a mall, with double rows of trees, under that wall, where lovers walk, and ragged, handsome urchins play the exciting game of fives, or sit in the dirt, gambling with cards for the Sorrento currency. I do not know what sin it may be to gamble for a bit of printed paper which has the value of one sou.

The great ravine, three quarters of a mile long, the ancient boundary which now cuts the town in two, is bridged where the main street, the Corso, crosses, the bridge resting on old Roman substructions, as everything else about here does. This ravine, always invested with mystery, is the theme of no end of poetry and legend. Demons inhabit it. Here and there, in its perpendicular sides, steps have been cut for descent. Vines and lichens grow on the walls: in one place, at the bottom, an orange grove has taken root. There is even a mill down there, where there is breadth enough for a building; and altogether, the ravine is not so delivered over to the power of darkness as it used to be. It is still damp and slimy, it is true; but from above, it is always beautiful, with its luxuriant growth of vines, and at twilight mysterious. I like as well, however, to look into its entrance from the little marina, where the old fishwives are weaving nets.

These little settlements under the cliff, called marinas, are worlds in themselves, picturesque at a distance, but squalid seen close at hand. They are not very different from the little fishing-stations on the Isle of Wight; but they are more sheltered, and their inhabitants sing at their work, wear bright colors, and bask in the sun a good deal, feeling no sense of responsibility for the world they did not create. To weave nets, to fish in the bay, to sell their fish at the wharves, to eat unexciting vegetables and fish, to drink moderately, to go to the chapel of St. Antonino on Sunday, not to work on fast and feast days, nor more than compelled to any day, this is life at the marinas. Their world is what they can see, and Naples is distant and almost foreign. Generation after generation is content with the same simple life. They have no more idea of the bad way the world is in than bees in their cells.

THE VILLA NARDI

The Villa Nardi hangs over the sea. It is built on a rock, and I know not what Roman and Greek foundations, and the remains of yet earlier peoples, traders, and traffickers, whose galleys used to rock there at the base of the cliff, where the gentle waves beat even in this winter-time with a summer swing and sound of peace.

It was at the close of a day in January that I first knew the Villa Nardi,--a warm, lovely day, at the hour when the sun was just going behind the Capo di Sorrento, in order to disrobe a little, I fancy, before plunging into the Mediterranean off the end of Capri, as is his wont about this time of year. When we turned out of the little piazza, our driver was obliged to take off one of our team of three horses driven abreast, so that we could pass through the narrow and crooked streets, or rather lanes of blank walls. With cracking whip, rattling wheels, and shouting to clear the way, we drove into the Strada di San Francisca, and to an arched gateway. This led down a straight path, between olives and orange and lemon-trees, gleaming with shining leaves and fruit of gold, with hedges of rose-trees in full bloom, to another leafy arch, through which I saw tropical trees, and a terrace with a low wall and battered busts guarding it, and beyond, the blue sea, a white sail or two slanting across the opening, and the whiteness of Naples some twenty miles away on the shore.

The noble family of the Villa did not descend into the garden to welcome us, as we should have liked; in fact, they have been absent now for a long time, so long that even their ghosts, if they ever pace the terrace-walk towards the convent, would appear strange to one who should meet them; and yet our hostess, the Tramontano, did what the ancient occupants scarcely could have done, gave us the choice of rooms in the entire house. The stranger who finds himself in this secluded paradise, at this season, is always at a loss whether to take a room on the sea, with all its changeable loveliness, but no sun, or one overlooking the garden, where the sun all day pours itself into the orange boughs, and where the birds are just beginning to get up a spring twitteration. My friend, whose capacity for taking in the luxurious repose of this region is something extraordinary, has tried, I believe, nearly every room in the house, and has at length gone up to a solitary room on the top, where, like a bird on a tree he looks all ways, and, so to say, swings in the entrancing air. But, wherever you are, you will grow into content with your situation.

At the Villa Nardi we have no sound of wheels, no noise of work or traffic, no suggestion of conflict. I am under the impression that everything that was to have been done has been done. I am, it is true, a little afraid that the Saracens will come here again, and carry off more of the nut-brown girls, who lean over the walls, and look down on us from under the boughs. I am not quite sure that a French Admiral of the Republic will not some morning anchor his three-decker in front, and open fire on us; but nothing else can happen. Naples is a thousand miles away. The boom of the saluting guns of Castel Nuovo is to us scarcely an echo of modern life. Rome does not exist. And as for London and New York, they send their people and their newspapers here, but no pulse of unrest from them disturbs our tranquillity. Hemmed in on the land side by high walls, groves, and gardens, perched upon a rock two hundred feet above the water, how much more secure from invasion is this than any fabled island of the southern sea, or any remote stream where the boats of the lotus-eaters float!

There is a little terrace and flower-plat, where we sometimes sit, and over the wall of which we like to lean, and look down the cliff to the sea. This terrace is the common ground of many exotics as well as native trees and shrubs. Here are the magnolia, the laurel, the Japanese medlar, the oleander, the pepper, the bay, the date-palm, a tree called the plumbago, another from the Cape of Good Hope, the pomegranate, the elder in full leaf, the olive, salvia, heliotrope; close by is a banana-tree.

I find a good deal of companionship in the rows of plaster busts that stand on the wall, in all attitudes of listlessness, and all stages of decay. I thought at first they were penates of the premises; but better acquaintance has convinced me that they never were gods, but the clayey representations of great men and noble dames. The stains of time are on them; some have lost a nose or an ear; and one has parted with a still more important member--his head,--an accident that might profitably have befallen his neighbor, whose curly locks and villainously low forehead proclaim him a Roman emperor. Cut in the face of the rock is a walled and winding way down to the water. I see below the archway where it issues from the underground recesses of our establishment; and there stands a bust, in serious expectation that some one will walk out and saunter down among the rocks; but no one ever does. Just at the right is a little beach, with a few old houses, and a mimic stir of life, a little curve in the cliff, the mouth of the gorge, where the waves come in with a lazy swash. Some fishing-boats ride there; and the shallow water, as I look down this sunny morning, is thickly strewn with floating peels of oranges and lemons, as if some one was brewing a gigantic bowl of punch. And there is an uncommon stir of life; for a schooner is shipping a cargo of oranges, and the entire population is in a clamor. Donkeys are coming down the winding way, with a heavy basket on either flank; stout girls are stepping lightly down with loads on their heads; the drivers shout, the donkeys bray, the people jabber and order each other about; and the oranges, in a continual stream, are poured into the long, narrow vessel, rolling in with a thud, until there is a yellow mass of them. Shouting, scolding, singing, and braying, all come up to me a little mellowed. The disorder is not so great as on the opera stage of San Carlo in Naples; and the effect is much more pleasing.