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 met almost overhead.
It is like Devonshire, except that one half hopes to see tropical
foxgloves with violet bells and downy leaves sprouting among the lush
grasses 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
encouragement and curses. Straight or bending like 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 fashion 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, buttressed 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 grass, 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 hill-side,
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 clustering
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
passed from childhood _a la belle etoile_, whose limbs had never been
cumbered 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.