the visitor during the rest of his stay in Sicily. For him who wishes to
see Trinacria thoroughly, and who has already made the acquaintance of
Messina and Syracuse, of Catania and Girgenti, the capital forms the most
convenient of head-quarters from which to visit whatever places of
interest remain to be seen in the western and southwestern corner of the
island. For it is hence that, in the natural order of things, he would
start for Marsala (famous as the landing-place of "the Thousand," under
Garibaldi, in 1860, and the commencement of that memorable march which
ended in a few weeks in the overthrow of the Bourbon rule) and Trapani
(from _drepanon_), another sickle-shaped town, dear to the Virgilian
student as the site of the games instituted by Æneas to the memory of the
aged Anchises, who died at Eryx, a poetically appropriate spot for a lover
of Aphrodite to end his days in. The town of the goddess on the top of
Monte San Giuliano, the ancient Eryx, is fast sinking to decay. Degenerate
descendants, or successors would perhaps be more correct, of her ancient
worshippers prefer the plain at its foot, and year by year migrations take
place thither which threaten to number this immemorial settlement of pagan
antiquity among the dead cities of the past, and to leave its grass-grown
streets and moldering cathedral alone with the sea and sky. There are no
remains of the world-famed shrine of Venus Erycina now save a few traces
of its foundation and an ancient reservoir, once a fountain dedicated to
the goddess. One need not linger on San Giuliano longer than is needful to
survey the mighty maritime panorama which surrounds the spectator, and to
note Cape Bon in Africa rising faintly out of the southward haze.
For Selinunto has to be seen, and Segesta, famous both for the grandeur
and interest of their Greek remains. From Castelvetrano station, on the
return route, it is but a short eight miles to the ruins of Selinus, the
westernmost of the Hellenic settlements of Sicily, a city with a history
of little more than two centuries of active life, and of upwards of two
thousand years of desolation. Pammilus of Megara founded it, so says
legend, in the seventh century B. C. In the fifth century of that era the
Carthaginians destroyed it. Ever since that day it has remained deserted
except as a hiding-place for the early Christians in the days of their
persecution, and as a stronghold of the Mohammedans in their resistance to
King Roger. Yet in its short life of some two hundred and twenty years it
became, for some unknown reason of popular sanctity, the site of no fewer
than seven temples, four of them among the largest ever known to have
existed. Most of them survive, it is true, only in the condition of
prostrate fragments, for it is supposed that earthquake and not time has
been their worst foe, and the largest of them, dedicated to Hercules, or
as some hold, to Appollo, was undoubtedly never finished at all. Its
length, including steps, reaches the extraordinary figure of three hundred
and seventy-one feet; its width, including steps, is a hundred and
seventy-seven feet; while its columns would have soared when completed to
the stupendous height of fifty-three feet. It dates from the fifth century
B. C., and it was probably the appearance of the swarthy Carthaginian
invaders which interrupted the masons at their work. It now lies a
colossal heap of mighty, prostrate, broken columns, their flutings worn
nearly smooth by time and weather, and of plinths shaped and rounded by
the same agencies into the similitude of gigantic mountain boulders.
It is, however, the temples of Selinunto rather than their surroundings
which command admiration and in this respect they stand in marked contrast
to that site of a single unnamed ruin, which is, perhaps, taking site and
ruin together, the most "pathetic" piece of the picturesque in all Sicily,
the hill and temple of Segesta. From Calatafimi, scene of one of the
Garibaldian battles, to Segesta the way lies along the Castellamare road,
and through a beautiful and well-watered valley. The site of the town
itself is the first to be reached. Monte Barbaro, with the ruins of the
theater, lies to the north, to the west the hill whereon stands the famous
Temple. No one needs a knowledge of Greek archæology or Greek history, or
even a special love for Greek art, in order to be deeply moved by the
spectacle which the spot presents. He needs no more than the capacity of
Virgil's hero to be touched by "the sense of tears in mortal things." The
Temple itself is perfect, except that its columns are still unfluted; but
it is not the simple and majestic outline of the building, its lines of
lessening columns, or its massive architraves upborne upon those mighty
shafts, which most impress us, but the harmony between this great work of
man and its natural surroundings. In this mountain solitude, and before
this deserted shrine of an extinct worship we are in presence of the union
of two desolations, and one had well-nigh said of two eternities, the
everlasting hills and the imperishable yearnings of the human heart. No
words can do justice to the lonely grandeur of the Temple of Segesta. It
is unlike any other in Sicily in this matter of unique position. It has
no rival temple near it, nor are there even the remains of any other
building, temple or what not, to challenge comparison, within sight of the
spectator. This ruin stands alone in every sense, alone in point of
physical isolation, alone in the austere pathos which that position
imparts to it.
In the Museum of Palermo, to which city the explorer of these ruined
sanctuaries of art and religion may now be supposed to have returned, the
interesting metopes of Selinus will recall the recollection of that
greater museum of ruins which he just visited at Selinunto; but the
suppressed monastery, which has been now turned into a Museo Nazionale,
has not much else besides its Hellenic architectural fragments to detain
him. And it may be presumed, perhaps, that the pursuit of antiquities,
which may be hunted with so much greater success in other parts of the
islands, is not precisely the object which leads most visitors to Sicily
to prolong their stay in this beautifully seated city. Its attraction
lies, in effect and almost wholly, in the characteristic noted in the
phrase just used. Architecturally speaking, Palermo is naught: it is
branded, as has been already said, with the banality and want of
distinction of all modern Italian cities of the second class. And,
moreover, all that man has ever done for her external adornment she can
show you in a few hours; but days and weeks would not more than suffice
for the full appreciation of all she owes to nature. Antiquities she has
none, or next to none, unless, indeed, we are prepared to include relics
of the comparatively modern Norman domination, which of course abound in
her beautiful mosaics, in that category. The silt of successive ages, and
the detritus of a life which from the earliest times has been a busy one,
have irrecoverably buried almost all vestiges of her classic past. Her
true, her only, but her all-sufficient attraction is conveyed in her
ancient name. She is indeed "Panormus"; it is as the "all harbor city"
that she fills the eye and mind and lingers in the memory and lives anew
in the imagination. When the city itself and its environs as far as
Monreale and San Martino and La Zisa have been thoroughly explored; when
the imposing Porta Felice has been duly admired; when the beautiful
gardens of La Flora, with its wealth of sub-tropical vegetation, has been
sufficiently promenaded on; when La Cala, a quaint little narrow, shallow
harbor, and the busy life on its quays have been adequately studied; then
he who loves nature better than the works of man, and prefers the true
eternal to the merely figurative "immortal," will confess to himself that
Palermo has nothing fairer, nothing more captivating, to show than that
_chef-d' oeuvre_ which the Supreme Artificer executed in shaping those
noble lines of rock in which Pellegrino descends to the city at its foot,
and in tracing that curve of coast-line upon which the city has sprung up
under the mountain's shadow. The view of this guardian and patron height,
this tutelary rock, as one might almost fancy it, of the Sicilian capital
is from all points and at all hours beautiful. It dominates the city and
the sea alike from whatever point one contemplates it, and the bold yet
soft beauty of its contours has in every aspect a never-failing charm. The
merest lounger, the most frivolous of promenaders in Palermo, should
congratulate himself on having always before his eyes a mountain, the mere
sight of which may be almost described as a "liberal education" in poetry
and art. He should haunt the Piazza Marina, however, not merely at the
promenading time of day, but then also, nay, then most of all, when the
throng has begun to thin, and, as Homer puts it, "all the ways are
shadowed," at the hour of sunset. For then the clear Mediterranean air is
at its clearest, the fringing foam at its whitest, the rich, warm
background of the Conca d'Oro at its mellowest, while the bare,
volcanic-looking sides of Monte Pellegrino seem fusing into ruddy molten
metal beneath the slanting rays. Gradually, as you watch the color die out
of it, almost as it dies out of a snow-peak at the fading of the
_Alpen-gluth_, the shadows begin to creep up the mountain-sides,
forerunners of the night which has already fallen upon the streets of the
city, and through which its lights are beginning to peer. A little longer,
and the body of the mountain will be a dark, vague mass, with only its
cone and graceful upper ridges traced faintly against pale depths of sky.
Thus and at such an hour may one see the city, bay, and mountain at what
may be called their æsthetic or artistic best. But they charm, and with a
magic of almost equal potency, at all hours. The fascination remains
unabated to the end, and never, perhaps, is it more keenly felt by the
traveller than when Palermo is smiling her God-speed upon the parting
guest, and from the deck of the steamer which is to bear him away he waves
his last farewell to the receding city lying couched, the loveliest of
Ocean's Nereids, in her shell of gold.
If his hour of departure be in the evening, when the rays of the westering
sun strike athwart the base of Pellegrino, and tip with fire the summits
of the low-lying houses of the seaport, and stream over and past them upon
the glowing waters of the harbor the sight is one which will not be soon
forgotten. Dimmer and dimmer grows the beautiful city with the increasing
distance and the gathering twilight. The warm rose-tints of the noble
mountain cool down into purple, and darken at last into a heavy mass of
somber shadows; the sea changes to that spectral silver which overspreads
it in the gloaming. It is a race between the flying steamer and the
falling night to hide the swiftly fading coast-line altogether from the
view; and so close is the contest that up to the last it leaves us
doubtful whether it be darkness or distance that has taken it from us. But
in a few more minutes, be it from one cause or from the other, the
effacement is complete. Behind us, where Palermo lay a while ago, there
looms only a bank of ever-darkening haze, and before the bows of our
vessel the gray expanse of Mediterranean waters which lie between us and
the Bay of Naples.
XIV
NAPLES
The Bay of Naples--Vesuvius--Characteristic scenes of street life--The
_alfresco_ restaurants--Chapel of St. Januarius--Virgil's Tomb--Capri,
the Mecca of artists and lovers of the picturesque--The Emperor
Tiberius--Description of the Blue Grotto--The coast-road from
Castellamare to Sorrento--Amalfi--Sorrento, "the village of flowers
and the flower of villages"--The Temples of Pæstum.
Naples in itself, apart from its surroundings, is not of surpassing
beauty. Its claim to be "the most beautiful city in Europe" rests solely
on the adventitious aid of situation. When the fictitious charm which
distance gives is lost by a near approach, it will be seen that the city
which has inspired the poets of all ages is little more than a huge,
bustling, commonplace commercial port, not to be compared for a moment,
æsthetically speaking, with Genoa, Florence, Venice, or many other Italian
towns equally well known to the traveller. This inherent lack is, however,
more than compensated for by the unrivaled natural beauties of its
position, and of its charming environs. No town in Europe, not Palermo
with its "Golden Shell," Constantinople with its "Golden Horn," nor Genoa,
the "Gem of the Riviera," can boast of so magnificent a situation. The
traveller who approaches Naples by sea may well be excused for any
exuberance of language. As the ship enters the Gulf, passing between the
beautiful isles of Ischia and Capri, which seem placed like twin outposts
to guard the entrance of this watery paradise, the scene is one which will
not soon fade from the memory. All around stretches the bay in its azure
immensity, its sweeping curves bounded on the right by the rocky
Sorrentine promontory, with Sorrento, Meta, and a cluster of little
fishing villages nestling in the olive-clad precipices, half hidden by
orange groves and vineyards, and the majestic form of Monte Angelo
towering above. Farther along the coast, Vesuvius, the tutelary genius of
the scene, arrests the eye, its vine-clad lower slopes presenting a
startling contrast to the dark cone of the volcano belching out fire and
smoke, a terrible earnest of the hidden powers within. On the left the
graceful undulations of the Camaldoli hills descend to the beautifully
indented bay of Pozzuoli, which looks like a miniature replica of the
parent gulf with the volcano of Monte Nuovo for its Vesuvius. Then
straight before the spectator lies a white mass like a marble quarry;
this, with a white projecting line losing itself in the graceful curve of
Vesuvius, resolves itself, as the steamer draws nearer, into Naples and
its suburbs of Portici and Torre del Greco. Beyond, in the far background,
the view is shut in by a phantom range of snowy peaks, an offshoot of the
Abruzzi Mountains, faintly discerned in the purple haze of the horizon.
All these varied prospects unite to form a panorama which, for beauty and
extent, is hardly to be matched in Europe.
This bald and inadequate description may perhaps serve to explain one
reason for the pre-eminence among the many beautiful views in the South of
Europe popularly allowed to the Bay of Naples. One must attribute the
æsthetic attraction of the Bay a good deal to the variety of beautiful and
striking objects comprised in the view. Here we have not merely a
magnificent bay with noble, sweeping curves (the deeply indented coasts of
the Mediterranean boast many more extensive), but in addition we have in
this comparatively circumscribed area an unequaled combination of sea,
mountain, and island scenery. In short, the Gulf of Naples, with its
islands, capes, bays, straits, and peninsulas, is an epitome of the
principal physical features of the globe, and might well serve as an
object lesson for a child making its first essay at geography. Then, too,
human interest is not lacking. The mighty city of Naples, like a huge
octopus, stretches out its feelers right and left, forming the straggling
towns and villages which lie along the eastern and western shores of the
bay. A more plausible, if prosaic, reason for the popularity of the Bay of
Naples may, however, be found in its familiarity. Naples and Vesuvius are
as well known to us in prints, photographs, or engravings as St. Paul's
Cathedral or the Houses of Parliament. If other famous bays, Palermo or
Corinth, for instance, were equally well known, that of Naples would have
many rivals in popular estimation.
The traveller feels landing a terrible anticlimax. The noble prospect of
the city and the bay has raised his expectations to the highest pitch, and
the disenchantment is all the greater. The sordid surroundings of the
port, the worst quarter of the city, the squalor and filth of the streets,
preceded by the inevitable warfare with the rapacious rabble of yelling
boatmen, porters, and cab-drivers, make the disillusionized visitor
inclined to place a sinister interpretation on the equivocal maxim, _Vedi
Napoli e poi mori_; and Goethe's aphorism, that a man can never be
utterly miserable who retains the recollection of Naples, seems to him the
hollowest mockery and the cruellest irony.
The streets of Naples are singularly lacking in architectural interest.
Not only are there few historic buildings or monuments, which is curious
when we consider the important part Naples played in the mediæval history
of the South of Europe, but there are not many handsome modern houses or
palaces of any pretensions. Not that Naples is wanting in interest. The
conventional sight-seer, who calls a place interesting in proportion to
the number of pages devoted to its principal attractions in the
guide-books, may, perhaps, contemptuously dismiss this great city as a
place which can be sufficiently well "done" in a couple of days; but to
the student of human nature Naples offers a splendid field in its varied
and characteristic scenes of street life. To those who look below the
surface, this vast hive of humanity, in which Italian life can be studied
in all its varied phases and aspects, cannot be wholly commonplace.
It is a truism that the life of Naples must be seen in the streets. The
street is the Neapolitan's bedroom, dining-room, dressing-room, club, and
recreation ground. The custom of making the streets the home is not
confined to the men. The fair sex are fond of performing _al fresco_
toilettes, and may frequently be seen mutually assisting each other in the
dressing of their magnificent hair in full view of the passers-by.
As in Oriental cities, certain trades are usually confined to certain
streets or alleys in the poorer quarters of the town. The names at street
corners show that this custom is a long-established one. There are streets
solely for cutlers, working jewelers, second-hand bookstalls, and old
clothes shops, to name a few of the staple trades. The most curious of
these trading-streets is one not far from the Cathedral, confined to the
sale of religious wares; shrines, tawdry images, cheap crucifixes,
crosses, and rosaries make up the contents of these ecclesiastical marine
stores. This distinctive local character of the various arts and crafts is
now best exemplified in the Piazza degli Orefici. This square and the
adjoining streets are confined to silversmiths and jewelers, and here the
characteristic ornaments of the South Italian peasant women can still be
bought, though they are beginning to be replaced by the cheap,
machine-made abominations of Birmingham. Apart from the thronging crowds
surging up and down, these narrow streets and alleys are full of dramatic
interest. The curious characteristic habits and customs of the people may
best be studied in the poor quarters round the Cathedral. He who would
watch this shifting and ever-changing human kaleidoscope must not,
however, expect to do it while strolling leisurely along. This would be as
futile as attempting to stem the ebb and flow of the street currents, for
the streets are narrow and the traffic abundant. A doorway will be found a
convenient harbor of refuge from the long strings of heavily laden mules
and donkeys which largely replace vehicular traffic. A common and highly
picturesque object is the huge charcoal-burner's wagon, drawn usually by
three horses abreast. The richly decorated pad of the harness is very
noticeable, with its brilliant array of gaudy brass flags and the shining
_repoussé_ plates, with figures of the Madonna and the saints, which,
together with the Pagan symbols of horns and crescents, are supposed to
protect the horses from harm. Unfortunately these talismans do not seem
able to protect them from the brutality of their masters. The Neapolitan's
cruelty to animals is proverbial. This characteristic is especially
noticeable on Festas and Sundays. A Neapolitan driver apparently considers
the seating capacity of a vehicle and the carrying power of a horse to be
limited only by the number of passengers who can contrive to hang on, and
with anything less than a dozen perched on the body of the cart, two or
three in the net, and a couple on the shafts, he will think himself weakly
indulgent to his steed. It is on the Castellamare Road on a Festa that the
visitor will best realize the astonishing elasticity of a Neapolitan's
notions as to the powers of a beast of burden. A small pony will often be
seen doing its best to drag uphill a load of twelve or fifteen hulking
adults, incited to its utmost efforts by physical suasion in the form of
sticks and whips, and moral suasion in the shape of shrill yells and
oaths. Their diabolical din seems to give some color to the saying that
"Naples is a paradise inhabited by devils."
The _al fresco_ restaurants of the streets are curious and instructive.
That huge jar of oil simmering on a charcoal fire denotes a fried-fish
stall, where fish and "oil-cakes" are retailed at one sou a portion. These
stalls are much patronized by the very poor, with whom macaroni is an
almost unattainable luxury. At street corners a snail-soup stall may often
be seen, conspicuous by its polished copper pot. The poor consider snails
a great delicacy; and in this they are only following ancient customs, for
even in Roman times snails were in demand, if we may judge from the number
of snail-shells found among the Pompeii excavations. A picturesque feature
are the herds of goats. These ambulating dairies stream through the town
in the early morning. The intelligent beasts know their customers, and
each flock has its regular beat, which it takes of its own accord.
Sometimes the goats are milked in the streets, the pail being let down
from the upper floors of the houses by a string, a pristine type of
_ascenseur_. Generally, though, the animal mounts the stairs to be milked,
and descends again in the most matter-of-fact manner.
The gaudily painted stalls of the iced-water and lemonade dealers give
warmth of color to the streets. There are several grades in the calling of
_acquaiolo_ (water-seller). The lowest member of the craft is the
peripatetic _acquaiolo_, who goes about furnished simply with a barrel of
iced water strapped on his back, and a basket of lemons slung to his
waist, and dispenses drinks at two centesimi a tumbler. It was thought
that the completion of the Serino aqueduct, which provides the whole of
Naples with excellent water at the numerous public fountains, would do
away with the time-honored water-seller; but it seems that the poorer
classes cannot do without a flavoring of some sort, and so this humble
fraternity continue as a picturesque adjunct of the streets. These are
only a few of the more striking objects of interest which the observer
will not fail to notice in his walks through the city. But we must leave
this fascinating occupation and turn to some of the regulation sights of
Naples.
Though, in proportion to its size, Naples contains fewer sights and
specific objects of interest than any other city in Italy, there are still
a few public buildings and churches which the tourist should not neglect.
There are quite half-a-dozen churches out of the twenty-five or thirty
noticed by the guide-books which fully repay the trouble of visiting them.
The Cathedral is in the old part of the town. Its chief interest lies in
the gorgeous Chapel of St. Januarius, the patron saint of Naples. In a
silver shrine under the richly decorated altar is the famous phial
containing the coagulated blood of the saint. This chapel was built at the
beginning of the seventeenth century, in fulfilment of a vow by the
grateful populace in honor of the saint who had saved their city "from the
fire of Vesuvius by the intercession of his precious blood." St. Januarius
is held in the highest veneration by the lower classes of Naples, with
whom the liquefaction ceremony, which takes place twice a year, is an
article of faith in which they place the most implicit reliance. The
history of the holy man is too well known to need repetition here. The
numerous miracles attributed to him, and the legends which have grown
round his name, would make no inconsiderable addition to the hagiological
literature of Italy.