For the next three days the wind went worrying on, and a line of surf
leapt on the sea-wall always to the same height. The hills all around
were inky black and weary.
At night the wild libeccio still rose, with floods of rain and lightning
poured upon the waste. I thought of the Florentine patrol. Is he out in
it, and where?
At last there came a lull. When we rose on the fourth morning, the sky
was sulky, spent and sleepy after storm--the air as soft and tepid as
boiled milk or steaming flannel. We drove along the shore to Porto
Venere, passing the arsenals and dockyards, which have changed the face
of Spezzia since Shelley knew it. This side of the gulf is not so rich
in vegetation as the other, probably because it lies open to the winds
from the Carrara mountains. The chestnuts come down to the shore in many
places, bringing with them the wild mountain-side. To make up for this
lack of luxuriance, the coast is furrowed with a succession of tiny
harbours, where the fishing-boats rest at anchor. There are many
villages upon the spurs of hills, and on the headlands naval stations,
hospitals, lazzaretti, and prisons. A prickly bindweed (the _Smilax
sarsaparilla_) forms a feature in the near landscape, with its creamy
odoriferous blossoms, coral berries, and glossy thorned leaves.
A turn of the road brought Porto Venere in sight, and on its grey walls
flashed a gleam of watery sunlight. The village consists of one long
narrow street, the houses on the left side hanging sheer above the sea.
Their doors at the back open on to cliffs with drop about fifty feet
upon the water. A line of ancient walls, with medieval battlements and
shells of chambers suspended midway between earth and sky, runs up the
rock behind the town; and this wall is pierced with a deep gateway above
which the inn is piled. We had our lunch in a room opening upon the
town-gate, adorned with a deep-cut Pisan arch enclosing images and
frescoes--a curious episode in a place devoted to the jollity of
smugglers and seafaring folk. The whole house was such as Tintoretto
loved to paint--huge wooden rafters; open chimneys with pent-house
canopies of stone, where the cauldrons hung above logs of chestnut; rude
low tables spread with coarse linen embroidered at the edges, and laden
with plates of fishes, fruit, quaint glass, big-bellied jugs of
earthenware, and flasks of yellow wine. The people of the place were
lounging round in lazy attitudes. There were odd nooks and corners
everywhere; unexpected staircases with windows slanting through the
thickness of the town-wall; pictures of saints; high-zoned serving
women, on whose broad shoulders lay big coral beads; smoke-blackened
roofs, and balconies that opened on the sea. The house was inexhaustible
in motives for pictures.
We walked up the street, attended by a rabble rout of boys--_diavoli
scatenati_--clean, grinning, white-teethed, who kept incessantly
shouting, "Soldo, soldo!" I do not know why these sea-urchins are so far
more irrepressible than their land brethren. But it is always thus in
Italy. They take an imperturbable delight in noise and mere annoyance. I
shall never forget the sea-roar of Porto Venere, with that shrill
obbligato, "Soldo, soldo, soldo!" rattling like a dropping fire from
lungs of brass.
At the end of Porto Venere is a withered and abandoned city, climbing
the cliffs of S. Pietro; and on the headland stands the ruined church,
built by Pisans with alternate rows of white and black marble, upon the
site of an old temple of Venus. This is a modest and pure piece of
Gothic architecture, fair in desolation, refined and dignified, and not
unworthy in its grace of the dead Cyprian goddess. Through its broken
lancets the sea-wind whistles and the vast reaches of the Tyrrhene gulf
are seen. Samphire sprouts between the blocks of marble, and in
sheltered nooks the caper hangs her beautiful purpureal snowy bloom.
The headland is a bold block of white limestone stained with red. It has
the pitch of Exmoor stooping to the sea near Lynton. To north, as one
looks along the coast, the line is broken by Porto Fino's amethystine
promontory; and in the vaporous distance we could trace the Riviera
mountains, shadowy and blue. The sea came roaring, rolling in with tawny
breakers; but, far out, it sparkled in pure azure, and the cloud-shadows
over it were violet. Where Corsica should have been seen, soared banks
of fleecy, broad-domed alabaster clouds.
This point, once dedicated to Venus, now to Peter--both, be it
remembered, fishers of men--is one of the most singular in Europe. The
island of Palmaria, rich in veined marbles, shelters the port; so that
outside the sea rages, while underneath the town, reached by a narrow
strait, there is a windless calm. It was not without reason that our
Lady of Beauty took this fair gulf to herself; and now that she has long
been dispossessed, her memory lingers yet in names. For Porto Venere
remembers her, and Lerici is only Eryx. There is a grotto here, where an
inscription tells us that Byron once "tempted the Ligurian waves." It is
just such a natural sea-cave as might have inspired Euripides when he
described the refuge of Orestes in "Iphigenia."