Part 59 (1/2)
About three on the morning which divides the month of May into two equal parts I woke and saw the waning moon right opposite my window, stayed in her descent upon the slope of Epomeo. Soon afterwards Christian called me, and we settled to ascend the mountain. Three horses and a stout black donkey, with their inevitable grooms, were ordered; and we took for guide a lovely faun-like boy, goat-faced, goat-footed, with gentle manners and pliant limbs swaying beneath the breath of impulse. He was called Giuseppe.
The way leads past the mineral baths and then strikes uphill, at first through lanes cut deep in the black lava. The trees meet almost overhead. It is like Devons.h.i.+re, except that one half hopes to see tropical foxgloves with violet bells and downy leaves sprouting among the lush gra.s.ses and sweet-scented ferns upon those gloomy, damp, warm walls. After this we skirted a thicket of arbutus, and came upon the long volcanic ridge, with divinest outlook over Procida and Miseno toward Vesuvius. Then once more we had to dive into brown sandstone gullies, extremely steep, where the horses almost burst their girths in scrambling, and the grooms screamed, exasperating their confusion with encouragements and curses. Straight or bending as a willow wand, Giuseppe kept in front. I could have imagined he had stepped to life from one of Lionardo's fancy-sprighted studies.
After this fas.h.i.+on we gained the spine of mountain which composes Ischia--the smooth ascending ridge that grows up from those eastern waves to what was once the apex of fire-vomiting Inarime, and breaks in precipices westward, a ruin of gulfed lava, tortured by the violence of pent Typhoeus. Under a vast umbrella pine we dismounted, rested, and saw Capri. Now the road skirts slanting-wise along the further flank of Epomeo, rising by muddy earth-heaps and sandstone hollows to the quaint pinnacles which build the summit.
There is no inconsiderable peril in riding over this broken ground; for the soil crumbles away, and the ravines open downward, treacherously masked with brushwood.
On Epomeo's topmost cone a chapel dedicated to S. Niccolo da Bari, the Italian patron of seamen, has been hollowed from the rock.
Attached to it is the dwelling of two hermits, subterranean, with long dark corridors and windows opening on the western seas. Church and hermitage alike are scooped, with slight expenditure of mason's skill, from solid mountain. The windows are but loopholes, leaning from which the town of Forio is seen, 2500 feet below; and the jagged precipices of the menacing Falange toss their contorted horror forth to sea and sky. Through gallery and grotto we wound in twilight under a monk's guidance, and came at length upon the face of the crags above Casamicciola. A few steps upward, cut like a ladder in the stone, brought us to the topmost peak--a slender spire of soft, yellowish tufa. It reminded me (with differences) of the way one climbs the spire at Strasburg, and stands upon that temple's final crocket, with nothing but a lightning conductor to steady swimming senses. Different indeed are the views unrolled beneath the peak of Epomeo and the pinnacle of Strasburg! Vesuvius, with the broken lines of Procida, Miseno, and Lago Fusaro for foreground; the sculpturesque beauty of Capri, b.u.t.tressed in everlasting calm upon the waves; the Phlegraean plains and champaign of Volturno, stretching between smooth seas and shadowy hills; the mighty sweep of Naples' bay; all merged in blue; aerial, translucent, exquisitely frail. In this ethereal fabric of azure the most real of realities, the most solid of substances, seem films upon a crystal sphere.
The hermit produced some flasks of amber-coloured wine from his stores in the grotto. These we drank, lying full-length upon the tufa in the morning sunlight. The panorama of sea, sky, and long-drawn lines of coast, breathless, without a ripple or a taint of cloud, spread far and wide around us. Our horses and donkey cropped what little gra.s.s, blent with bitter herbage, grew on that barren summit. Their grooms helped us out with the hermit's wine, and turned to sleep face downward. The whole scene was very quiet, islanded in immeasurable air. Then we asked the boy, Giuseppe, whether he could guide us on foot down the cliffs of Monte Epomeo to Casamicciola. This he was willing and able to do; for he told me that he had spent many months each year upon the hillside, tending goats. When rough weather came, he wrapped himself in a blanket from the snow that falls and melts upon the ledges. In summer time he basked the whole day long, and slept the calm ambrosial nights away.
Something of this free life was in the burning eyes, long cl.u.s.tering dark hair, and smooth brown bosom of the faun-like creature. His graceful body had the brusque, unerring movement of the goats he shepherded. Human thought and emotion seemed a-slumber in this youth who had grown one with nature. As I watched his careless incarnate loveliness I remembered lines from an old Italian poem of romance, describing a dweller of the forest, who
Haunteth the woodland aye 'neath verdurous shade, Eateth wild fruit, drinketh of running stream; And such-like is his nature, as 'tis said, That ever weepeth he when clear skies gleam, Seeing of storms and rain he then hath dread, And feareth lest the sun's heat fail for him; But when on high hurl winds and clouds together, Full glad is he and waiteth for fair weather.
Giuseppe led us down those curious volcanic _balze_, where the soil is soft as marl, with tints splashed on it of pale green and rose and orange, and a faint scent in it of sulphur. They break away into wild chasms, where rivulets begin; and here the narrow watercourses made for us plain going. The turf beneath our feet was starred with cyclamens and wavering anemones. At last we reached the chestnut woods, and so by winding paths descended on the village. Giuseppe told me, as we walked, that in a short time he would be obliged to join the army. He contemplated this duty with a dim and undefined dislike. Nor could I, too, help dreading and misliking it for him.
The untamed, gentle creature, who knew so little but his goats as yet, whose nights had been pa.s.sed from childhood _a la belle etoile_, whose limbs had never been c.u.mbered with broadcloth or belt--for him to be shut up in the barrack of some Lombard city, packed in white conscript's sacking, drilled, taught to read and write, and weighted with the knapsack and the musket! There was something lamentable in the prospect. But such is the burden of man's life, of modern life especially. United Italy demands of her children that by this discipline they should be brought into that harmony which builds a nation out of diverse elements.
From Ischia to Naples
Ischia showed a new aspect on the morning of our departure. A sea-mist pa.s.sed along the skirts of the island, and rolled in heavy ma.s.ses round the peaks of Monte Epomeo, slowly condensing into summer clouds, and softening each outline with a pearly haze, through which shone emerald glimpses of young vines and fig-trees.
We left in a boat with four oarsmen for Pozzuoli. For about an hour the breeze carried us well, while Ischia behind grew ever lovelier, soft as velvet, shaped like a gem. The mist had become a great white luminous cloud--not dense and alabastrine, like the clouds of thunder; but filmy, tender, comparable to the atmosphere of Dante's moon. Porpoises and sea-gulls played and fished about our bows, dividing the dark brine in spray. The mountain distances were drowned in bluish vapour--Vesuvius quite invisible. About noon the air grew clearer, and Capri reared her fortalice of sculptured rock, aerially azure, into liquid ether. I know not what effect of atmosphere or light it is that lifts an island from the sea by interposing that thin edge of l.u.s.trous white between it and the water. But this phenomenon to-day was perfectly exhibited. Like a mirage on the wilderness, like Fata Morgana's palace ascending from the deep, the pure and n.o.ble vision stayed suspense 'twixt heaven and ocean. At the same time the breeze failed, and we rowed slowly between Procida and Capo Miseno--a s.p.a.ce in old-world history athrong with Caesar's navies. When we turned the point, and came in sight of Baiae, the wind freshened and took us flying into Pozzuoli.
The whole of this coast has been spoiled by the recent upheaval of Monte Nuovo with its lava floods and cindery deluges. Nothing remains to justify its fame among the ancient Romans and the Neapolitans of Boccaccio's and Pontano's age. It is quite wrecked, beyond the power even of hendecasyllables to bring again its breath of beauty:--
Mec.u.m si sapies, Gravina, mec.u.m Baias, et placidos coles recessus, Quos ipsae et veneres colunt, et illa Quae mentes hominum regit voluptas.
Hic vina et ch.o.r.eae jocique regnant, Regnant et charites facetiaeque.
Has sedes amor, has colit cupido.
His pa.s.sim juvenes puellulaeque Ludunt, et tepidis aquis lavantur, Coenantque et dapibus leporibusque Miscent delitias venustiores: Miscent gaudia et osculationes, Atque una sociis toris foventur, Has te ad delitias vocant camoenae; Invitat mare, myrteumque littus; Invitant volueres canorae, et ipse Gaurus pampineas parat corollas.[1]
[1] These verses are extracted from the second book of Pontano's _Hendecasyllabi_ (Aldus, 1513, p. 208). They so vividly paint the amus.e.m.e.nts of a watering-place in the fifteenth century that I have translated them:--
With me, let but the mind be wise, Gravina, With me haste to the tranquil haunts of Baiae, Haunts that pleasure hath made her home, and she who Sways all hearts, the voluptuous Aphrodite.
Here wine rules, and the dance, and games and laughter; Graces reign in a round of mirthful madness; Love hath built, and desire, a palace here too, Where glad youths and enamoured girls on all sides Play and bathe in the waves in sunny weather, Dine and sup, and the merry mirth of banquets Blend with dearer delights and love's embraces, Blend with pleasures of youth and honeyed kisses, Till, sport-tired, in the couch inarmed they slumber.
Thee our Muses invite to these enjoyments; Thee those billows allure, the myrtled seash.o.r.e, Birds allure with a song, and mighty Gaurus Twines his redolent wreath of vines and ivy.
At Pozzuoli we dined in the Albergo del Ponte di Caligola (Heaven save the mark!), and drank Falernian wine of modern and indifferent vintage. Then Christian hired two open carriages for Naples. He and I sat in the second. In the first we placed the two ladies of our party. They had a large, fat driver. Just after we had all pa.s.sed the gate a big fellow rushed up, dragged the corpulent coachman from his box, pulled out a knife, and made a savage thrust at the man's stomach. At the same moment a _guardia-porta_, with drawn cutla.s.s, interposed and struck between the combatants. They were separated.
Their respective friends a.s.sembled in two jabbering crowds, and the whole party, uttering vociferous objurgations, marched off, as I imagined, to the watch-house. A very shabby lazzarone, without more ado, sprang on the empty box, and we made haste for Naples. Being only anxious to get there, and not at all curious about the squabble which had deprived us of our fat driver, I relapsed into indifference when I found that neither of the men to whose lot we had fallen was desirous of explaining the affair. It was sufficient cause for self-congratulation that no blood had been shed, and that the Procuratore del Re would not require our evidence.
The Grotta di Posilippo was a sight of wonder, with the afternoon sun slanting on its festoons of creeping plants above the western entrance--the gas lamps, dust, huge carts, oxen, and _contadini_ in its subterranean darkness--and then the sudden revelation of the bay and city as we jingled out into the summery air again by Virgil's tomb.
Night at Pompeii
On to Pompeii in the clear sunset, falling very lightly upon mountains, islands, little ports, and indentations of the bay.
From the railway station we walked above half a mile to the Albergo del Sole under a lucid heaven of aqua-marine colour, with Venus large in it upon the border line between the tints of green and blue.