Part 27

Capri, though still famous for beautiful women, whose classic features, statuesque forms, and graceful carriage, recall the Helens and the Aphrodites of the Capitol and Vatican, and seem to invite transfer to the painter's canvas, can no longer be called the "artist's paradise." The pristine simplicity of these Grecian-featured daughters of the island, which made them invaluable as models, is now to a great extent lost. The march of civilization has imbued them with the commercial instinct, and they now fully appreciate their artistic value. No casual haphazard sketches of a picturesque group of peasant girls, pleased to be of service to a stranger, no impromptu portraiture of a little Capriote fisher-boy, is now possible. It has become a "sitting" for a consideration, just as if it took place in an ordinary Paris atelier or a Rome studio. The idea that the tourist is a gift of Providence, sent for their especial benefit, to be looked at in the same light as are the "kindly fruits of the earth," recalls to our mind the quaint old Indian myth of Mondamin, the beautiful stranger, with his garments green and yellow, from whose dead body sprang up the small green feathers, afterwards to be known as maize. However, the Capriotes turn their visitors to better account than that; in fact, their eminently practical notions on the point appear to gain ground in this once unsophisticated country, while the recognized methods of agriculture remain almost stationary. The appearance of a visitor armed with sketch-book or camera is now the signal for every male and female Capriote within range to pose in forced and would-be graceful attitudes, or to arrange themselves in unnatural conventional groups: aged crones sprout up, as if by magic, on every doorstep; male loungers "lean airily on posts"; while at all points of the compass bashful maidens hover around, each balancing on her head the indispensable water-jar. These vulgarizing tendencies explain why it is that painters are now beginning to desert Capri.

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

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

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

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

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

In spite of the undeniable beauties of Capri, it seems so given up to artists and amateur photographers that it is a relief to get away to a district not quite so well known. We have left to the last, as a fitting climax, the most beautiful bit of country, not only in the neighborhood of Naples, but in the whole of South Italy. The coast-road from Castellamare to Sorrento, Positano, and Amalfi offers a delightful alternation and combination of the softest idyllic scenery with the wildest and most magnificent mountain and crag landscape. In fact, it is necessary to exercise some self-restraint in language and to curb a temptation to rhapsodize when describing this beautiful region. The drive from Naples to Castellamare is almost one continuous suburb, and the change from this monotonous succession of streets of commonplace houses to the beautiful country we reach soon after leaving the volcanic district at Castellamare is very marked. In the course of our journey we cannot help noticing the bright yellow patches of color on the beach and the flat house-tops. This is the wheat used for the manufacture of macaroni, of which Torre dell' Annunziata is the great center. All along the road the houses, too, have their loggias and balconies festooned with the strips of finished macaroni spread out to dry. All this lights up the dismal prospect of apparently never-ending buildings, and gives a literally local color to the district. There is not much to delay the traveller in Castellamare, and soon after leaving the overcrowded and rather evil-smelling town we enter upon the beautiful coast-road to Sorrento. For the first few miles the road runs near the shore, sometimes almost overhanging the sea. We soon get a view of Vico, picturesquely situated on a rocky eminence. The scenery gets bolder as we climb the Punta di Scutola. From this promontory we get the first glimpse of the beautiful Piano di Sorrento. It looks like one vast garden, so thickly is it covered with vineyards, olive groves, and orange and lemon orchards, with an occasional aloe and palm tree to give an Oriental touch to the landscape. The bird's-eye view from the promontory gives the spectator a general impression of a carpet, in which the prevailing tones of color are the richest greens and gold. Descending to this fertile plateau, we find a delightful blending of the sterner elements of the picturesque with the pastoral and idyllic. The plain is intersected with romantic, craggy ravines and precipitous, tortuous gorges, resembling the ancient stone quarries of Syracuse, their rugged sides covered with olives, wild vines, aloes, and Indian figs. The road to Amalfi here leaves the sea and is carried through the heart of this rich and fertile region, and about three miles from Sorrento it begins to climb the little mountain range which separates the Sorrento plain from the Bay of Salerno.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

INDEX

A

Aboukir, and Nelson's victory, 253-255

About, Edmond, on the importance of Marseilles, 95

Abruzzi Mountains, 326

Aba-Abul-Hajez, builder of Moorish Castle, Gibraltar, 15

Abyla, Phoenician name of Ceuta, 26

Aci Castello, 300

Aci Reale, 300

Acis and Galatea, 300

Æneas and the games at Trapani, 318

Africa, "Crystal atmosphere" of, 5

Agate Cape, 57

Agay, 148

Agnone, 302

Alameda Gardens, Gibraltar, 13

Alassio, 159

Alban, Mont, 143

Alcantara, Valley of the, 300

Alexander the Great, founding Alexandria, 237

Alexandria, 96; appearance from the sea, 235; historical interest, 236; Alexander's choice of the site, 237; harbor, 238; main street, 240; Grand Square, 241; Palace of Ras-et-teen, 243; view from Mount Caffarelli and the Delta, 244; Pompey's Pillar, 246; Library, 247; the Serapeum, cemeteries, mosques, Coptic convent, and historic landmarks, 248; defeat of Antony, and Napoleon, 251; Ramleh, 251; Temple of Arsenoe, 252; Aboukir Bay and Nelson, 253, 254; Rosetta, Haroun Al Rashid, and the English expedition of 1807, 256; fertility of the Delta, 258; Cairo and the rising of the Nile, 260; Damietta, 261; Port Said, 261, 262; ruins of Pelusium, 263; Suez Canal and M. de Lesseps, 264

Algeciras, 4, 23, 24

Algeria, 78, 97

Algiers, 96, 123; "a pearl set in emeralds," 28; the approach to, and the Djurjura, 29; the Sahel, Atlas, and the ancient and modern towns, 30; cathedral and mosque, 31; tortuous plan of the new town, 33, 34; Mustapha Supérieur, and English colony, 35, 37; a Moorish villa, 38; view from El Biar, Arab cemetery, and idolatry, 39; superstitions and climate, 41

Alhendin, 59

Ali, Mehemet, 239; his works in Alexandria, 241, 242; destroys English troops at Rosetta, 257

Almeria, 55, 56, 57

Alps, The, 131; the Julian, 147, 148, 154

Alpujarras, The, 44, 55

Altinum, 231

Amalfi, 345, 347, 349

Amru, 236

Amsterdam and its canals, 219

Anacapri, 344

Anchises, 318

André, St., 139, 143

Angelo, Michael, and the marble quarries at Seravezza, 197

Ansedonia, 211

Antibes, 96, 147, 151, 152

Antipolis, 151

Antony, Mark, defeated by Octavius at Mustapha Pacha, 251

Apes' Hill, English designation of Ceuta, 26

Aquæ Sextiæ, or Aix, Roman colony on the site of Marseilles, 109

Arabic legend and the Moorish Castle, Gibraltar, 15

Aragon, Kings of, Palace of the, at Barcelona, 67, 83

Arbiter, Petronius, 122

Aristophanes, and the sausage-seller, 148

Arles, 110

Arsenoe, Temple of, and the story related by Catullus, 252

Aryan Achæans, 108

Aryan and Semite struggle against Christianity and Mohammedanism, 4

Athanasius at Alexandria, 236

Athens, 96

Atlantic, Ideas of ancient Greeks respecting the, 2

Atlas, Mount, 29

Attard, "village of roses," 291

Attila, 233

Augustine, St., and the angel, 213; at St. Honorat, 150

Augustus, and Turbia, 153

Autran, Joseph, 122

Avenza, 195

Avernus, 338

Avignon, 96

B

Bab-el-Sok, gate of the market-place at Tangier, 6

Baiæ, 339

Balzac, witty remark on dinners in Paris, 89

Balzan, 291

Barbaroux, 122

Barcelona, 21, 95, 123; eulogy of Cervantes, the promenades and the people, 61; funerals, and the flower-market, 62; streets, Rambla, and cathedral, 65; Palais de Justice, and Parliament House, 66; Palace of the kings of Aragon, 67; museum, park, and monuments to Prim and Columbus, 69; bird's-eye view, Fort of Montjuich, Mont Tibidaho, 70; cemetery and mode of burial, 71; festival of All Saints, 72; Catalonia, and the church of Santa Maria del Mar, 74; organ in cathedral, and the suburbs, 77; Gracia, 77; Sarria, 78; Barceloneta, 79; Academy of Arts, schools, music, the University, and workmen's clubs, 80; Archæological Society, primary education, and places of amusement, 82; history of, 83; trade, healthful properties, and charitable institutions, 84; churches, convents, electric lighting, population, and Protestantism, 86; democracy, and holidays of, 87; Mariolatry, 88; Caballaro, 89; climate, 90; hotels, 90; good looks of the men and women, the police, 92; progressive tendencies, the post-office and passports, 93

Barco, Hamilcar, founder of Barcelona, 82

Barral des Baux, 121

Barthélemy, 122

Baths of Barcelona, 90; of Cleopatra, 250; of Caratraca, 44

Bay of Biscay, 1

"Belgium of the East," The, 251

Bellet, Le, 139

Belzunce, Monseigneur, and the plague at Marseilles, 113, 114

Bentinck, Lord W., and his attack on Genoa, 166

Bérenger, 122

Berenice, and the Temple of Arsenoe, 252

Bighi, 288

Boabdil, last king of Granada, 59

Boccaccio, and the church of St. Lorenzo, Naples, 232

Bordighera, 158

Boron, Mont, 125

Bouchard, M., and the Egyptian stone at Rosetta, 257

Britain, and Tangier, 4; and the acquisition of Gibraltar, 22

Browning, Robert, and Gibraltar, 6

Bruèys, Admiral, defeated by Nelson at Aboukir Bay, 254

Buena Vista, Gibraltar, 14, 23

Bull-fights at Barcelona, 82, 87; at Malaga, 54

Burgundians, The, 109

Burmola, 289

Byng, Rear-Admiral, and the siege of Gibraltar, 22

C

Cabo de Bullones, Spanish name of Ceuta, 26

Cadiz Bay, 6

Café at Gibraltar, 11

Cagliari, 96

Cairo, 258; rising of the Nile, 260

Cala Dueira, 271

Calpe, Rock of (Gibraltar), 2, 14

Camaldoli hills, 326

Campyses, at Pelusium, 262

Canal, Grand, at Venice, 222-228

Cannes, 125, 130; "a Babel set in Paradise," 150; principal streets, and origin, 151; fortifications of Vauban, and Roman remains, 152

Capraja, 207

Capri, 326; changes in appearance, 334; its fascination, 339; historical associations, 340; palaces of Tiberias, 341; its beautiful women, 342; Blue Grotto, 343

Carabacel, 127, 138

Caratraca, Baths of, 44, 50

Carinthia, Dukes of, 233

Carlos, Don, and the rising in Barcelona, 84

Carnival at Nice, 133

Carqueyranne, 147

Carrara, church of St. Andrea, and the marble quarries, 196; mosquitos, 197

Cartama, 51

Carthagenians, and Genoa, 162; destruction of Selinus, 319

Casal Curmi, 291

Casal Nadur, 273

Cassian, St., and the monastery of St. Victor, Marseilles, 116

Castellaccio, Fort of, 297

Castellamare, 345

Castiglione della Pescaia, 209

Castile, 25

Castle, Moorish, at Gibraltar, 15

Catacombs at Alexandria, 249

Catania, 302

Cathedral, at Gibraltar, 13; at Marseilles, 98; at Genoa, 80; at Barcelona, 65; at Nice, 129; at Almeria, 57; at Algiers, 31; at Pisa, 194; St. Mark's, Venice, 224-226

Catullus, and his story relating to the temple of Arsenoe, 252

Cemetery at Alexandria, 248

Cervantes, eulogium on Barcelona, 61

Ceuta, 17; origin of name and history of, 25; main features of, 26; ancient names, and shape of rock, 26

Champollion, M., and the Egyptian stone at Rosetta, 258

Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, and his palace at Genoa, 172

"Charles III., King," 21, 22

Charles V., 20

Château d'If, 105

Chiavari, 186

Chioggia, 230

Cholera, The, at Marseilles, 112

Cimiez, 127, 138; monastery and amphitheatre of, 139, 142

Civita Vecchia, its founder and history, 213

Cleopatra, and Antony, at Alexandria, 236; Baths of, at Alexandria, 250

Cleopatra's Needle, 246

Columbus, Monument to, at Genoa, 177; monument at Barcelona, 69; his reception at Barcelona by Ferdinand and Isabella, 69, 83

Cominetto, 270

Comino, 268, 272

Concha, General, and the sugar-cane industry of Malaga, 51

Constantinople, 95

Contes, 139

Convent, Coptic, at Alexandria, 248

Coneto, "lifts to heaven a diadem of towers," 212; churches, Etruscan and Roman antiquities, and origin, 213

Cornigliano, 147

Corno, Remains of, 212

Corradino, 288

Cosspicua, 289

Cremation suggested for adoption in Barcelona, 71

Cressy, Battle of, 179

Cumæ, 333, 339

Cyclops, The, and the Scogli dei Ciclopi, 301

Cyrus, 94

D

Damanhour, 258

Damietta, 261

Darby, Admiral, and the siege of Gibraltar, 18

Delord, Taxile, 122

Delta, Egyptian, Fertility of the, 258

Djama-el-Kebir, Mosque at Tangier of the, 6

Djurjura, The, 29

Don, General, and the Alameda Gardens, Gibraltar, 13

Doria, Andrea, and his influence in Genoa, 164, 173; incidents in his life, 176

Drinkwater, Captain John, and the siege of Gibraltar, 18

Dumas, Alexandre, allusion to Pozzuoli, 338

D'Urfé, 122

E

"Eagle-Catchers," The (87th Regiment), 4

Edward, son of King John of Portugal, and his expedition against Tangier, 25

Egypt, variety of interest connected with, 238; inscribed stone at Rosetta, 257; agricultural wealth of, 258; the "gift of the Nile," 259; English expedition of 1807, 256

Elba, quarries and mines of, 203; Napoleon's confinement, plans for improving the island, and his escape, 203-206

El Hacho, signal-tower at Gibraltar, 16, 26

Elliot, General, Monument at Gibraltar to, 13; the siege of Gibraltar, 17, 18

English statuary, Defective, 13

Eryx, 318

Esparto grass, 56

Espérandieu, and the church of Notre Dame de la Garde, Marseilles, 117

Estepona, 23

Estérel, The, 148, 150

Etna, 295-303

Etruscans, The, 211

Euganean Hills, The, 230

Eugénie, Empress, Spanish origin of, 55

Euroklydon, The, at Malta, 270

Europa Point, Gibraltar, 13; cottage at, 14, 18

Euthymenes, 97; statue at Marseilles, 100

F

Falicon, 139, 144

Famine at Genoa, 165