THE VESUVIAN SHORE AND MONTE SANT’ ANGELO
That little stream the Sebeto, which is indeed, as the courtly Metastasio
observes, “scanty in depth of water though overflowing with honour,” may
be considered as the boundary line that divides the city of Naples from
its eastern environs, although it is evident that the whole stretch of
coast from Posilipo to Torre del Greco is covered with an unbroken line of
houses. Past the highly cultivated _Paduli_, the chief market-gardens on
this side of the city, with the town of La Barra on the fertile slopes to
our left, we pass by way of San Giovanni a Teduccio to Portici, once a
favourite resort of royalty. Here the dilettante Charles III., first
Bourbon King of Naples, built a palace and laid out gardens in the days of
patches and powder, constructing a royal pleasaunce that was destined to
become the chief residence of the temporary supplanter of his own family,
Joachim Murat, the citizen king of Naples and brother-in-law of the great
Napoleon. Villa and gardens still remain, but monarchs have ceased to
visit Portici since the days of Bomba, and the old royal demesne has been
turned into an agricultural college. Adjoining and practically forming
part of Portici is the town of Resina, which preserves almost intact the
old classical name of Retina that it bore in the distant days when it
served as the port of Herculaneum. Here then in the mean streets of Resina
we find ourselves standing above, though certainly not upon, historic
ground, for the temples and villas, the theatres and private houses of the
famous buried city lie far below the surface trodden by our feet. To visit
Herculaneum it is necessary for us to descend some seventy to a hundred
feet into the depths of the earth, passing more than one layer of ancient
lava, for Resina and Portici themselves are but modern editions of former
towns that have been engulfed in the course of ages. If the stranger can
derive any solid satisfaction from the descent by a gloomy underground
passage and from fleeting glimpses of ancient walls and dwellings seen
through a forest of wooden baulks, which serve to support the spaces
excavated, he must indeed be an enthusiast. But most people, perhaps all
sensible people, will be content to take the undoubted interest of
Herculaneum on trust, probably agreeing (at any rate after their visit)
that the inspection of this subterranean city is not worth the candle, by
whose flickering beams alone can objects be distinguished in the
oppressive darkness. Personally we strongly hold to the expressed opinion
of Alexandre Dumas, who declared that even the most hardened antiquary
could not desire more than one hour’s contemplation of this hidden mass of
shapeless wreckage. “Herculaneum,” writes that genial Frenchman, “but
wearies our curiosity instead of exciting it. We descend into the
excavated city as into a mine by a species of shaft; then come corridors
beneath the earth which can only be entered by the light of tapers; and
these smoke-grimed passages allow us from time to time to obtain a
momentary glimpse of the angle of a house, the colonnade of some temple,
the steps of a theatre. Everything is fragmentary, mutilated, dingy,
uncertain, confused, and therefore unsatisfactory. Well, at the end of an
hour spent in wandering amongst these abysmal recesses, the most hardened
archæologist, the most dry-as-dust antiquary, the most inquisitive of
tourists begins to experience only one feeling—an intense desire to ascend
to the light of day and to breathe once more the fresh air of the upper
world.”
Nevertheless, it was from these dismal caverns, black as Erebus, that some
of the choicest marbles and bronzes that now adorn the Museum at Naples
were originally extracted. From a villa at Herculaneum also was taken the
famous collection of 3000 rolls of papyrus, chiefly filled with the
writings of the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus, perhaps the greatest
“find” of ancient literature that has yet been made, although the contents
of this damaged library, deciphered with equal toil and ingenuity, have
not proved to be of the value originally set upon them by expectant
scholars. But much of the city itself has yet hardly been touched since
the days when it was destroyed in the reign of Titus, so that far below
the squalid lanes of Portici and Resina there must still exist acres upon
acres of undisturbed buildings, public and private, many of them perhaps
filled with priceless works of Greek and Roman art, for Herculaneum,
unlike Pompeii, was never tampered with by the ancients themselves, for
the coating of volcanic mud, which filled the whole area of the city, made
impracticable a systematic searching of its ruins by the despoiled
citizens. Then, as if nature had not already buried the city sufficiently
deep, subsequent eruptions of Vesuvius have superimposed additional layers
of lava, whilst confiding human beings have in their turn built
habitations upon the volcanic crust.
We all know the story, perhaps mythical, of the discovery of Herculaneum
at the beginning of the eighteenth century by the accidental sinking of a
well upon its long-forgotten site and of the subsequent excavations made
by the Prince d’Elbœuf. These so-called explorations were, however, made
in the most greedy and destructive spirit, for the prince’s sole object
was to obtain antique works of art for his private collection, not to make
intelligent enquiries about the dead and buried city lying beneath his
estate. Ignorant workmen were despatched to hew and hack wholesale in the
mirky depths in order to discover statuary and paintings, and since there
was no receptacle at hand to contain the _débris_, they took the simple
course of filling in each hollow made with the masses of rubbish already
excavated. Later in the same century the Bourbon king was induced by
Neapolitan savants to take some interest in the work, but, strange to
relate, the superintendent appointed, a certain Spanish officer named
Alcubier, was so ignorant and careless that half the objects found under
his supervision were broken or lost before they reached Naples; this
ignoramus, it was said, even went so far as to order whole architraves to
be smashed up and their bronze lettering to be picked out before making a
copy of the original inscription! Under these circumstances the marvel is
that anything of beauty or value should have survived at all, for this
selfish plundering of Herculaneum, in strong contrast with the reverent
treatment meted out to Pompeii, may be considered one of the greatest
pieces of vandalism ever perpetrated. In spite of this wholesale
destruction, however, there must remain untouched, as we have said, a vast
quantity of objects, beautiful, useful or curious, yet it is extremely
doubtful if we shall live to see any serious and intelligent effort made
to bring these hidden treasures forth to the light of day. The expense of
working this buried hoard would be enormous in any case, whilst the
existence of the houses of Resina and Portici overhead necessitates
special measures of precaution on the part of the excavators. The only
method of examining Herculaneum properly would be in fact to treat the
buried site like an immense mine by the construction of regular galleries
and shafts for the entrance of skilled workmen, and to remove the rubbish
displaced to the outer air. Perhaps some multi-millionaire might be found
ready to undertake so arduous, yet so fascinating a task, though we fear
that the Italian Government, which has always shown itself as tenacious of
its subterranean wealth of antiquity as it appears languid in the work of
quarrying it, would indignantly refuse to accede to any such offer. As
regards the ancient city of Hercules, therefore, we must perforce remain
content to inspect the magnificent bronzes and the other objects of
interest that are to be found in the Museum of Naples, for we are not
likely to see any further researches just at present, more’s the pity,
since there is every reason to suppose that a thorough investigation
conducted regardless of cost would yield up to the world the most
marvellous and valuable results.
Some two miles of dusty suburb lie between Resina and Torre del Greco,
which has been destroyed time after time by the lava streams descending
from “that peak of Hell rising out of Paradise,” as Goethe once named the
burning mountain overhead. Nevertheless, the Torrese continue to sit
patiently at the feet of the fire-spouting monster, trembling when he is
angry, pleased when he is quiescent, and ready to abandon meekly their
homes when he renders them insupportable by his furious outbursts. Yet
these people never fail to return and risk the ever-present chances of
death and destruction. And little can we blame them for their fatalism,
when we gaze upon the glorious views that reveal themselves at this spot,
whence Naples rising proudly from the sea, the rocky islands of Ischia and
Capri, the aerial heights of Monte Sant’ Angelo and all the features of
the placid bay are seen spread around us in a panorama of unsurpassed
loveliness. Beneath lava rocks, black and sinister, that contrast
strangely in their sombre hues with the brilliant tints of sea and sky,
lie little beaches of glittering gravel that would afford delightful
retreats for meditation, were it not for the dozens of half-naked
brown-skinned imps, children of the fisher-folk of Torre del Greco, who
wallow in the warm sand or rush with joyful screams into the tepid surf.
The population must have increased not a little since those days, nearly a
century ago, when the unhappy Shelley could find peace and solitude in his
darkest hours of unrest upon these shores, where it would be well-nigh
impossible for a twentieth-century poet to espy a retreat for soothing his
soul in verse. Yet somehow, during the drowsy noontide rest when the
active life of the South ceases, if only for an hour or so, it is still
possible to catch the spirit in which that melancholy wanderer indited one
of his most exquisite lyrics:—sunshine, clear sky, murmuring seas, the
fragrance of the Italian spring, all are present to our reverie; and how
true and perfect a picture has the poet-artist drawn for us of this
beautiful Vesuvian shore!
“The sun is warm, the sky is clear,
The waves are dancing fast and bright,
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear
The purple noon’s transparent light:
The breath of the moist earth is light
Around its unexpanded buds;
Like many a voice of one delight,
The winds, the birds, the ocean floods,
The City’s voice itself is soft, like Solitude’s.
I see the Deep’s untrampled floor
With green and purple seaweeds strown;
I see the waves upon the shore,
Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown:
I sit upon the sands alone;
The lightning of the noontide ocean
Is flashing round me, and a tone
Arises from its measured motion,
How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion?”
But it must be admitted that the seashore by Torre del Greco does not
often lend itself as a suitable spot for romantic or solitary communings
with nature; it is a busy place where the struggle for life is keen and
practical enough, and its inhabitants have little time or inclination to
bestow on the pursuit of poetry. As in all the towns of the _Terra di
Lavoro_, as this collection of human ant-hills on the eastern side of
Naples is sometimes designated, the old command given to the first parents
of mankind—“by the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread”—is scrupulously
observed in Torre del Greco. It is little enough, however, that these
frugal people demand, for a hunk of coarse bread, tempered with a handful
of beans or an orange in winter or with a slice of luscious pink
water-melon or a few figs in summer, is thought to constitute a full meal
in this climate; nor are these simple viands washed down by anything more
potent than a draught of _mezzo-vino_, the weak sour wine of the country.
A dish of maccaroni or a plateful of kid or veal garnished with vegetables
is a treat to be reserved for a marriage or some great Church festival,
whilst a chicken is regarded as a luxury in which only _gran’ signori_ of
boundless wealth can afford to indulge. Amongst the many classes of
toilers with which populous Torre del Greco abounds, that of the
coral-fishers is perhaps the most interesting. There is pure romance in
the very notion of hunting for the beautiful coloured substance lying
hidden in the crystalline depths of the Mediterranean, and its quest is
not a little suggestive of azure caverns beneath the waves, peopled by
soft-eyed mermaids and strange iridescent fishes. As a matter of fact, it
would be difficult to name a harder occupation or a more dismal monotonous
existence than that of the coral-fishers, many hundreds of whom leave this
little port every spring in order to spend the summer months on the coasts
of Tripoli, Sardinia, or Sicily. The men employed, who work under contract
during some six months of unending drudgery, are by no means all natives
of Torre del Greco, but are collected from various places of the
neighbourhood, not a few of them being thrifty youths from Capri, who are
eager to amass as quickly as possible the lump sum of money requisite to
permit of marriage. It is true that the amount actually paid by the owners
of the coral fleet sounds proportionately large, yet it is in reality poor
enough recompense when measured by the ceaseless toil, the burning heat
and the wretched food, which the venture entails. The lot of the
coral-fisher has however much improved of late years, partly by measures
of government which now compel the contractors to treat their servants
more humanely, and partly by the fact that the practice of emigration in
Southern Italy has reduced the numbers of applicants for the coral-fishing
business and has thereby, indirectly at least, raised wages and bettered
the old conditions of service. A truly pitiable account is given of these
poor creatures some thirty years ago by an English writer, whose knowledge
of the Neapolitan people and character remains probably unsurpassed; and
it is some satisfaction to reflect that even in Mr Stamer’s day the bad
old oppressive system had already been somewhat tempered for the benefit
of these white slaves, who for nearly half the round of the year were
worse treated than King Bomba’s unhappy victims in the pestilent prisons
of Naples and Gaeta.
[Illustration: A CAPRIOTE FISHERMAN’S WIFE]
“Badly paid, badly fed, and hard worked is the poor coral-fisher. Compared
with his, the life of a galley-slave is one of sybaritical indolence. His
treatment was, until very recently, not one whit better than that of the
poor oppressed negro as he existed in the vivid imagination of Mrs Harriet
Beecher Stowe; immeasurably worse than that of the real Simon Pure. The
thirty ducats for which he sold his seven months’ services once paid, he
was just as much a slave as Uncle Tom of pious memory, harder worked, more
brutally handled. His _padrone_ was a sea-monster, alongside of whom Mr
Legree would have seemed a paragon of Quaker-like gentleness and
amiability. His word was law and a rope’s end well laid on his sole reply
to any remonstrance on the part of his bondsmen. For six days out of the
seven he kept them working incessantly, not unfrequently on the seventh
into the bargain, if the weather was favourable; and that they might be
strong, hearty and able to haul away, their food consisted of dry
biscuits; a dish of maccaroni with just sufficient oil to make the sign of
the cross being served out for the Sunday’s dinner.”(1)
In those “good old days,” not so very far distant, the dredging nets were
coarse and weighty, and the capstan of the clumsiest and most primitive
description, so that the coral-seeking serfs under contract were worked
like bullocks until they were often wont to fall asleep out of sheer
exhaustion as they hauled away mechanically. We can imagine then with what
raptures of joy these ill-treated mortals must have hailed the advent of
October, the month that terminated their long spell of suffering and
semi-starvation, and with what eagerness they must have returned
homewards, the more industrious to perform odd jobs during the winter
season on farms or in factories; the lazier to enjoy a well-earned holiday
of loafing on the quay or in the piazza. And although times have changed
for the better in the eyes of the coral-fisher, his lot still remains hard
enough, even in the present days of grace; whilst any employment that saps
the workman’s strength during the hot summer months and leaves him idle or
unemployed in winter time cannot well be described as a desirable trade.
Yet the temptation to obtain a considerable sum of money in advance, as is
the case in this particular industry, often proves overwhelming to the
young man of the Torres or of Castellamare, imprudently married before he
is out of his teens and with an ever-increasing family. It is so easy to
accept the proffered gold, which will keep wife and babies in comparative
comfort throughout the long hot summer; unskilled labour is paid so
lightly on these teeming shores of the Terra di Lavoro; saddled already
with children he cannot make up his feeble mind to emigrate; in short, to
go a-coralling is his sole chance, if he wishes to keep his home together
and to stave off charity or starvation from his young wife and family.
Beyond Torre del Greco we seem to escape to a certain extent from the
enveloping network of human dwellings, so that we are at last enabled to
gain some idea of the natural features of the country. The oriental
character of the landscape, which marks more or less distinctly the whole
of the Neapolitan coast-line, will at once be noticed in the domed farm
buildings, not unlike Mahommedan _koubbas_, washed a glistening white,
that stand out sharply against the lugubrious tints of the lava beds.
Above us, crowning a bosky hillock that juts forth from the mountain
flank, stands one of the many convents of the monks of Camaldoli, whose
houses are scattered throughout the breadth of Southern Italy. The
position of their Vesuvian settlement is certainly unique, for the rising
ground on which it is perched appears like some verdant oasis amid the
arid fields of sable lava. Secure in its commanding site, the monastery
has many a time been completely surrounded by burning streams, which have
invariably left the building and its woody demesne unscathed. More than
once have the good brethren, who wear the white robe of St Romualdo of
Ravenna, looked down from their convent walls upon the work of destruction
below, and have watched the waves of liquid fire surging angrily but
uselessly round the rocky base of their retreat. Hard manual labour,
prayer, solitude and contemplation: these are the chief duties enjoined by
the famous Tuscan order, and surely no more suitable place for carrying
out such precepts could have been chosen by the pious founder of this
Vesuvian convent. For what scenes on earth could be deemed more beautiful
to contemplate, we wonder, than the wide stretches of heaven and ocean, of
fertile plain and of rugged mountain, that are ever before the eyes of the
brethren; or more instructive than the constant spectacle of disappointed
human ambition and energy, which is afforded by the barren lava beds and
the ruined cities close at hand!
Descending from the slopes of Camaldoli, we cross a tract of country
wherein black lava alternates with patches of rich cultivation and of
thriving vineyards, and gaining the high road we soon reach Torre
Annunziata. Here it is evident that the manufacture of maccaroni forms the
chief industry of its population, for on all sides are to be seen the
frames filled with the golden coloured strings of _pasta_ that have been
hung up to dry in the sunshine. Every flat roof in the place, moreover, is
covered with smooth concrete and protected by a low parapet for the
spreading of the grain, and on the beach are laid huge cloths of coarse
brown material that are heaped with masses of the crude corn, whilst men
with their naked feet from time to time turn the grain so as to dry the
whole bulk. Torre Annunziata and its inland neighbour, Gragnano, are in
fact the two chief local scenes of this industry with which the Bay of
Naples has always been so closely associated, and it is here that we can
best make ourselves acquainted with the process of manufacturing
maccaroni. By following any one of the tall brown-skinned fellows,
stripped to the waist and bare-legged, who have been breathing the fresh
air of the street for a few moments, we quickly arrive at the entrance of
one of the many small factories with which the town abounds. In spite of
open doors and windows its atmosphere feels hot and stifling, for it is
impregnated with tiny particles of flour dust, which too often, alas! are
apt to affect permanently the lungs of the workmen. The dough of maccaroni
is obtained by mixing pure wheaten flour with semolina in certain
proportions, only water being used for the purpose, whilst the task of
kneading is carried out in primitive fashion by means of a lever worked
continuously by two or more men. When the dough has at length arrived at
the required consistency after some hours of steady kneading, it is placed
in a large perforated copper cylinder, each hole having a central pin at
the bottom and a valve on top. A powerful screw is then employed to press
down upon the dough, which is thus squeezed out of the imprisoning
cylinder through the holes in the serpentine shape that is so familiar to
us. On reaching a certain length these pipes, issuing from the holes, are
twisted off and are then removed for drying to the frames in the open air.
Maccaroni has, of course, many varieties of form and quality, from the
thin fluffy vermicelli, known under the poetical name of _Capilli degli
Angeli_, to the great thick pipe-stem-like article of ordinary commerce.
There are endless means of cooking and dressing this, the national dish of
Italy, but perhaps the most popular of all is _alla Napolitana_, wherein
it is served with tomato sauce, to which a sprinkling of grated Parmesan
cheese is frequently added. A compound of eggs and maccaroni, sometimes
known as a Neapolitan omelette, likewise makes an appetising dish, though
it is one that is little known to foreigners. One circumstance is patent;
the dismal so-called “maccaroni pudding” one meets with in England seems
to have nothing in common with the delicately flavoured, sustaining dish
that can be obtained for a few pence in any Southern restaurant.
Torre Annunziata has the reputation of being a dirty malodorous town,
composed of shabby stone houses and full of quarrelsome people. Well,
perhaps there is a scintilla of truth in the sweeping observation, yet if
we can contrive to endure the smells and racket of the place for a brief
space of time, there is much of human interest to be observed in the daily
scenes of its crowded beach and its noisy streets. After all, no odours of
the South can compare in all-pervading intensity with the blended aroma of
fried fish and London fog that old Drury Lane can often produce; nor are
the Torrese more dangerous to strangers or more objectionable in their
habits than the crowds of Lambeth or Seven Dials. In strength of lungs, it
must be granted, the Italian easily surpasses the Londoner, for the
Southern voice is positively alarming in its vigour and its far-reaching
power. No one—man, woman or child—can apparently speak below a scream;
even the most amiable or trivial of conversations seems to our
unaccustomed ears to portend an imminent quarrel, to so high a pitch are
the naturally harsh voices strained. Morning, noon and night the same
hubbub of men shouting, of women screeching, and of children yelling
continues for nobody minds noise in Italy, where people are troubled with
no nerves of their own and consequently have no consideration for those of
strangers. And why, therefore, should they suspend their native habits to
please a handful of cavilling _forestieri_?
A stroll through Torre Annunziata, although it possesses not a few
drawbacks, can be made both amusing and instructive; we can even find
something attractive in the quality of the local atmosphere, which
suggests at one and the same time sunshine, garlic, incense, stale fish
and wood smoke; it is the pungent but characteristic aroma of the South,
filled “with spicy odours Time can never mar.” And what truly charming
pictures do the family groups present in the wide archways giving on the
untidy courts within, full of sun and shadow and gay with bright-coloured
garments swaying in the wind! The ebon-haired young mother with teeth like
pearls and with warm-tinted cheeks sits fondling the last helpless little
addition to her growing family, whilst toddlers of any age from two to
seven, unkempt but bright-eyed and engaging, play around the door-step,
watched over by their grandmother, or may be their great-grandam, who with
her wizened face enfolded in her yellow kerchief, her skinny neck, and her
distaff in the bony fingers, looks as if she had stepped out of some
Renaissance painting of the Three Fates in a Florentine gallery. Crimson
carnations in earthenware pots stand on the steps of the outside
staircase, giving a touch of refinement to the squalid home, and from the
balcony overhead the glossy-black, yellow-billed _passer solitario_, the
favourite cage-bird of the Neapolitan poor, chirrups with apparent
cheerfulness in his wicker-work prison. Behind, in the dim shadows of the
large room, which serves as sole habitation, we can espy the inevitable
household altar with the oil lamp glimmering before the little
crude-coloured print of the Virgin and Child, and its usual accessory, the
piece of palm or olive that was blessed by the priest last Palm Sunday;
poor and mean though the chamber be, its bed linen and simple appointments
are more cleanly than might perhaps be inferred from the appearance of the
family itself. In a shady corner close by, three or four young labourers
at their mid-day rest have finished their frugal repast of bread and
beans, and are now playing eagerly the popular game of _zecchinetto_ with
a frayed and grimy pack of cards. Wives or sweethearts watch with anxious
faces from a respectful distance, for it is not meet to disturb the lords
of creation when they happen to be engaged in a game of chance. What
possibilities of farce and tragedy can be drawn from so simple, so common
a scene upon these shores, where human life is less artificially conducted
than elsewhere in Europe, and where human passions are kept under less
restraint? Terrible are the tales of jealousy and revenge, of deliberate
treachery and of uncontrolled violence, which are related of these
quick-tempered grown-up children of the South, who seem to love and hate
with the blind intensity of untutored savages.
“Lo ’nnamorato’ mmio sse chiammo Peppo,
Lo capo jocatore de le carte;
Ss’ ha jocato ’sto core a zecchinetto,
Dice ca mo’ lo venne, e mo’ lo parte.
Che n’agg’ io a fare lo caro de carte?
Vogho lo core che tinite ’m pietto!”
(“That lover of mine is called Handsome Beppo,
The best player of cards all around this way;
He’s been playing on Hearts at _zecchinetto_,
And says now they turn up, now are sorted away.
What matters the heart in the card-pack to me?
The heart in his bosom’s the heart for me!”)
Here lies the sleeping fisherman, worn out probably with hours of hauling
at the heavy nets, who is snatching a chance hour of repose, prone upon
his chest with face buried in his crossed arms. Little he seems to reck of
the damp of the soil or the heat of the sun, nor can a noisy game of
_mora_ played by a couple of his companions beside him disturb his deep
slumber. _Mora_ has ever been the classic game of the South, and indeed,
there is abundant evidence to show that it was played by the ancestors of
these dwellers in Magna Graecia hundreds of years before Pompeii was
overthrown. The game, which requires nothing but the human fingers, bears
no little resemblance to our own humble pastime of “Up Jenkin!” which may
almost be described as a species of drawing-room _mora_; perhaps some
Italian traveller in a past age may actually have introduced this form of
the southern diversion into prosaic England. The two players, face to face
and craning forward with outstretched necks, simultaneously extend their
right hands with one or more fingers pointing upward, the aim of each man
being to guess the exact number, from two to ten, jointly displayed by
both right hands. If one of them hit upon the correct figure, then he
gains one point towards the stakes, which are usually made in _centesimi_
rather than in _soldi_. How rapidly do the lean supple brown fingers flash
backwards and forwards, and with what gusto do the two frenzied combatants
yell out their numbers! _Mora_ has been a favourite recreation with these
people almost from their cradles, and he would be a bold man indeed who
would venture to challenge a Torrese at this game, for the native’s skill
and experience are almost bound to tell eventually in his favour, and the
odds are “Lombard Street to a China orange” against the outside player.
There are certain maxims too with regard to the game which are closely
observed by those who play it, as well as peculiar expressions, such as
_tutte_ to denote that all ten fingers are being shown, or _chiarella_ for
all but one. Five points usually make the game, and these are commonly
marked by holding up one or more fingers of the disengaged left
hand.—These are a few of the many sights to be witnessed by those who can
afford to endure the pestering attentions of small boys, and the
uncomplimentary staring of the adult population in such places as the
Torres or Castellamare; and such as wish to make themselves acquainted
with the details of southern life and manners cannot do better than pass
an idle hour in the fishmarket or the piazza of these little industrial
towns of the Vesuvian shore. For to regard Southern Italy from the
majestic isolation of a railway compartment or a hired carriage cannot
possibly give the traveller the smallest insight into the ordinary phases
of local life; for he is ever looking, as it were, into a picture from
which all trace of colour has vanished.
It is but a short quarter of an hour by train from Torre Annunziata to
Castellamare di Stabia, the ill-fated Stabiae of the Romans, which shared
the evil lot of Pompeii and Herculaneum. On our right we have the sea,
with the castle-topped islet of Revigliano, whilst on looking to the left
we can survey the fertile valley of the Sarno, and the shapeless mounds
which hide that precious goal of every traveller to these shores, the
buried city of Pompeii. Everywhere thrives sub-tropical vegetation:—cactus
and aloe draped in wreaths of smilax; tall straggling masses of scarlet
geranium that cling for protection to the Indian fig, and blossom in
security amid their spiky but safe retreats; shrubs of fragrant yellow
genista; clumps of purple-leaved _ricini_, as the Italians name the
castor-oil plant. If it were summer time, the daturas would be covered
with their great white floral trumpets, and every oleander bush would be
one blaze of the coarse carmine blossoms that are here called _Mazza di
San Giuseppe_, or St Joseph’s nosegay, and a very gaudy rank bouquet they
make. But in spring-time the oleander can but display long greyish leaves
and pods of snowy fluff, which is blown hither and thither like
thistle-down on the air; and it is only in flaming summer that these
regions are brightened by St Joseph’s flower, or by the still more
gorgeous masses of the mesembryanthemum, which clambers on all sides over
the lava rock and hangs in crimson festoons from tufa cliffs, making
impossibly splendid splashes of colour in the landscape.
* * * * * * *
So many writers have expatiated upon the sordid ugliness of Castellamare
and upon the beauty of the wooded slopes above the town, that a further
description of the place may well be dispensed with. Uninteresting,
however, as this industrial town appears, it boasts a long historical
record, to which its crumbling medieval castle bears witness. The great
Emperor Frederick the Second, the scholar-pope Pius the Second, and all
the monarchs of the Angevin, Aragonese and Bourbon dynasties have been
associated with this “castle by the sea.” The whole district was once the
property of that human monster Pier-Luigi Farnese, duke of Parma, heir of
Pope Paul the Third, of whose demoniacal cruelty and treachery the racy
pages of Cellini’s Memoirs give so vivid an account, and whose repulsive
face has grown familiar to us from Titian’s famous portraits in the
gallery of Naples. It was the evil Pier-Luigi’s descendant and
heiress-general of the family, Elizabeth Farnese, Queen of Spain, who
conveyed the beautiful villa and woods of Quisisana to the Bourbon kings,
and here the Neapolitan royal family for several generations sought health
(as the name of the place implies) and repose upon the breezy heights that
lie so conveniently near to the great city in full view to the west.
Nowadays the old royal villa, deserted by crowned heads since Ferdinand’s
days and fallen from its high estate to its present use of a hotel and
pension, forms with its park the chief attraction of Castellamare, where
English travellers are wont to congregate in winter, and Neapolitan and
Greek seekers of pleasure or drinkers of medicinal waters resort in the
hot summer months. The Southerners who come here for their _villeggiatura_
certainly enjoy a better time than the winter visitors, for the bulky form
of Monte Sant’ Angelo intercepts much of the sunshine, thereby rendering
the place damp and chilly in the cold season of the year. Nominally it is
the mineral springs that attract the Neapolitan folk, wherein they have a
fine choice of health-giving beverages, varying from the _acqua ferrata_,
a mild chalybeate that is found useful as a tonic, to the powerful _acqua
del Muraglione_, that is warranted to reduce the stoutest mortal to a mere
shadow of his former self in a trice. But though the waters may be
occasionally sipped of a morning and wry faces made, it is in reality the
warm sea-bathing on the shore, where people spend hours pickling in tepid
salt water, and also the cool rides or walks amongst the shady alleys of
sweet chestnut and ilex woods of Quisisana and Monte Coppola, which draw
hither in summer the elegant world of Naples, and even of Athens, to visit
Castellamare. The leafy groves on the zephyr-swept hill sides, once sacred
to the pleasures of Bourbon tyrants, now ring with peals of noisy
laughter, with gallant compliments, and with the harsh shouting of the
_ciucciari_, the leaders of the poor over-driven donkeys. Unhappy patient
beasts! usually covered with raws and galls, that are urged forward at a
gallop by the remorseless stick, or even by the goad, for the Neapolitan
donkey-boy is absolutely callous to the feelings of his animal. Not that
he is cruel out of sheer cussedness, for cruelty’s sake, for he can be
really kind to his dog or his cat; but the beast of burden, the helpless
uncomplaining servant of man, suffers terribly at his hands. It is useless
to remonstrate or argue with the young ruffian, who at our sharp reprimand
will merely open wide his big black eyes and stare in genuine amazement.
_Non sono Cristiani_—they have no souls, and the beasts are their property
and not yours; what does it matter then to you how they are treated,
provided they carry you properly? That is the sum total of the
donkey-boy’s argument, and he has high ecclesiastical authority to back up
his private theory, if he had the wit to enter into a discussion with us
on the subject. Almost equally hopeless is it to point to the simple fact
that a well-groomed, well-treated animal lasts longer than a half-starved,
mutilated scare-crow. “How old is your horse?” we once asked a driver in
the south. “He is very old indeed, _eccelenza_,” was the reply; “he must
be nearly twelve!” On being informed that horses often worked well up to
twenty years old and over in England, he let us infer, quite politely,
that he thought we were romancing. Tenderness towards the dumb creation is
a common, not to say a prevailing characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon race,
and it must be confessed that the thoughtless and horrible cruelty towards
animals witnessed on all sides in the Neapolitan Riviera amounts to a
serious drawback to the full enjoyment of its many beauties and amenities.
Matters are improving a little of late, it is only fair to add. There is
an Italian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and its
officials have done some good in the streets of Naples itself, but
naturally its new ideas have not yet penetrated far into the country
districts.
[Illustration: ROAD NEAR CASTELLAMARE]
To the healthy and energetic the most delightful excursion that
Castellamare can offer is the ascent to the summit of Monte Sant’ Angelo,
that monarch of the Bay of Naples, whose lofty crest gleams with snowy
streaks until the spring be well advanced. The lazy or the feeble can make
use of one of the poor oppressed donkeys, but it is better to engage its
ragged master, who without his four-footed drudge to whack and kick is a
harmless enough being, to act as guide over the steep ill-defined pathway
that leads ever upwards. As we slowly ascend through the sub-tropical
region of fig and vine, of olive and carouba, we question our guide, who
in spite of his bright eyes and well-knit frame seems about as intelligent
a companion as the poor ass left behind in the stall, where he is
enjoying, let us hope, an unexpected holiday. It is not easy to extract
information from our native attendant, yet with a little judicious
pressing we learn from him that the top of the mountain, which is our
bourne, was once inhabited by evil spirits, until a holy hermit took up
his abode on the peak, since when his sanctity has kept the place
tolerably clear of witches and foul incubi. Wicked sprites, however, still
haunt the spreading woods of beech and chestnut which we must presently
traverse, and our guide (whose name is Vincenzo) admits to us that he
would not care to venture there alone, even in broad daylight. There is,
he tells us, warming up at last to the subject, much gold hidden there,
which the spirits guard so jealously that they are ready to tear in pieces
any mortal who is clever enough to find and bold enough to rifle their
secret hoards. Only a priest, on account of his sacred office, is reckoned
safe from their iniquitous spells. “But has not any one dared,” we ask,
“to go in company with a holy man, to search for this hidden treasure?”
Well, yes, he had been told that men from Vico had once ventured up into
the woods to search for the gold. With a little encouragement Vincenzo is
finally prevailed upon to give us the whole story, which is evidently of
somewhat recent date.
Once upon a time there were four men, one of them being a priest, who
lived in Vico, and one of these men had often been told by his father that
in the forests near the top of Monte Sant’ Angelo there lay buried a chest
full of gold—_molto! molto!_ The father of the man had been himself in his
youth to search for the treasure, but find it he never could, for he would
never take a priest with him to avert the spells of the evil spirits of
the mountain sides, who kept the place hidden. So this time the man chose
two out of his friends, the boldest and the trustiest he could fix upon,
to accompany him, and at the same time he obtained the promise of a
cousin, who was a priest, to assist in the undertaking. All four made
their way up to the woods, and whilst the three men were digging and
searching, the priest continued to read aloud the incantations out of a
certain book he had brought with him for the purpose. In course of time
the chest was discovered to the joy of all, and sure enough it was bulging
with the desired gold pieces. They opened it without difficulty, and the
four friends divided its contents in equal shares. Scarcely had the work
of division been carried out, than there came a loud voice issuing from
the unknown, calling out the question:—“_Che ferete con questo tesoro?_”
“_Mangeremo, beveremo!_” boldly replied one of the group, to whom this
sudden accession of wealth offered dreams of unlimited platters of
maccaroni and countless flasks of ruby-red Gragnano in the future. “We
shall eat, we shall drink, but we shall also make abundant alms!” called
out another—let us hope it was the priest!—but no sooner had the word
_elemosina_ (alms) been uttered than there was heard a most terrific
rattling of chains, the gold pieces turned to dead leaves in the
affrighted mortals’ hands, and the four men took to their heels and fled
in alarm down the mountain flank.
Vincenzo believes this tale implicitly, just as it was related to him, and
he adds to combat our own incredulity that the priest and one of the men
who took part in this strange adventure were still living and ready to
confirm the story, but that of the remaining two, one was now dead, and
the other had been deaf and dumb ever since the event. It seem a pity to
criticise Vincenzo’s simple little narrative, which makes a pretty
fairy-story and points a sound moral, as it stands.
We enter the fresh scented woods that have now replaced in our climb the
rich cultivated crops and terraced gardens, and here amidst the clumps of
ancient chestnuts our guide points out to us the great snow-pits, the
contents of which are used to cool the water sold by the _acquaioli_
during hot summer nights in the sultry streets of Naples. These pits are
dug about fifty feet deep, and half as much across, being conical in shape
with a grating placed a short distance above the tapering base to allow
the melted snow to drain off into the soil. The sides of each pit are
first well-lined with straw and leafy branches, and the new-fallen snow
shovelled in and forced into a solid mass by pressure from above, whilst
on top is placed a sound thatched roof. As we wander through the silent
woods we see patches of anemones, white and blue, lying upon the
leaf-strewn ground, and beside them in many places are tufts of the pale
starry primroses; coarse spurge, and lush masses of the hellebore with its
large pale green flowers and dark leaves are common enough on all sides.
From amongst the naked trees we emerge into the bare bleak stony stretches
that lead to the summit, covered with the coarse but aromatic vegetation
that clothes the dry limestone wastes of the south. How truly marvellous
is the description of these wind-swept, weed-grown solitudes that Robert
Browning presents to us in what is perhaps the most truly Italian in
feeling of all his poems, “The Englishman in Italy!” For here with the
rich imagination, worthy of some of Shelley’s finest flights, is mingled
an accurate appreciation of Nature, of which Wordsworth might well be
proud; for the Lake poet himself could not have improved upon this
exquisite description of the various shrubs and plants of a limestone
hill-top in Italy.
“The wild path grew wilder each instant,
And place was e’en grudged
’Mid the rock-chasms and piles of loose stones,
Like the loose broken teeth
Of some monster which climbed there to die
From the ocean beneath—
Place was grudged to the silver-grey fume-weed
That clung to the path,
And dark rosemary ever a-dying,
That, spite the wind’s wrath,
So loves the salt rock’s face to seaward,
And lentisks as staunch
To the stone where they root and bear berries,
And ... what shows a branch
Coral-coloured, transparent, with circlets
Of pale sea-green leaves.”
Above our heads hovers a kite, performing graceful circles in the keen
clear air and breaking the oppressive silence of the place with his shrill
screams, for his mate must have her nest hidden in some cleft of yon grey
towering cliff. A pair of crested hoopoes with brown plumage and ruddy
breasts keep fluttering a little way before us, uttering from time to time
their curious notes of alarm. Mercifully these handsome birds have escaped
the fowler, who lays his snares even amongst the spirit-haunted crags of
this desolate region. The hoopoe, though a very rare visitor to our
northern shores, is fairly common on the Mediterranean coast, and he would
be still more frequently encountered, were it not for his hereditary
enemy, Man. There is a venerable legend concerning this interesting
bird—_bubbola_, the Italians call him—which relates how ages ago on the
scorching plains of Palestine a number of hoopoes once followed King
Solomon as he was riding, and in order to protect the great king from the
fierce rays of the sun, they formed themselves into a living screen to
shelter the royal head. Grateful for this welcome attention, Solomon Ben
David at eventide sent for the king of the Hoopoes to ask him what reward
he would like to receive for this service, and the answer was promptly
made that a crown of pure gold on the head would be acceptable. The Jewish
monarch smiled grimly as he granted the request, whereupon immediately
each bird found his poll decorated with a tuft of pure golden feathers,
and mightily pleased with their new magnificence were the conceited
hoopoes. But alas! the news was quickly spread abroad that there were to
be seen strange birds with plumes of real gold, and the eternal lust of
gain at once set men in quest of the hoopoes, whom they began to slay
wholesale with stones, arrows, and traps in order to obtain the coveted
precious metal they bore on their heads. In despair, the king of the
hoopoes then flew to the monarch sitting on his ivory throne at Jerusalem,
and begged him to change their golden crowns for crests of feathers.
Solomon the Wise smilingly gave the order; at once lovely red and black
feathers took the place of the golden plumes, and the slaughter of the
hoopoes in Palestine forthwith ceased. And the story, argues the recorder
of this lesson upon the folly of personal adornment, must of necessity be
true, for it is certain that the hoopoes bear a crown of feathers upon
their heads unto this day.
Slowly we toil up the last portion of the peak, until we reach the ruined
chapel of St Michael upon its summit, which is still a resort of local
pilgrims, although in these days of doubt and avarice, when “sins are so
many and saints so few,” the statue of the Archangel since its removal
from this spot no longer perspires with the sacred dew, which the priests
used to collect with cotton wool on the first day of August and distribute
to the peasants of the district. Like the oil that was once wont to exude
from the blessed relics of St Andrew in the Cathedral of Amalfi, _non c’è
più_; we may possess motor cars and radium, but we must contrive to exist
without these precious exhibitions of the miraculous.
It would be sheer folly to attempt a full description of that glorious
view, comprising the bays of Gaeta, Naples, and Salerno; of Vesuvius with
his ascending smoky clouds; of the endless chain of the snow-tipped
Abruzzi Mountains that bound the vision to the east; of the vast expanse
of the Mediterranean, stretching in one unbroken sheet of turquoise to the
west, varied by violet patches of reflected cloud, and studded by
innumerable ships, from the vast liners to the tiny fishing craft with
their glistening sails, like snow-white sea-swallows resting on the calm
waters. Again we turn to Robert Browning, most human of poets and most
kindly of philosophers, to find adequate expression for the thoughts we
dare not, cannot utter.
“Oh, heaven and the terrible crystal!
No rampart excludes
Your eye from the life to be lived
In the blue solitudes.
Oh, those mountains, their infinite movement!
Still moving with you;
For ever some new head and breast of them
Thrusts into view
To observe the intruder; you see it
If quickly you turn,
And before they escape you surprise them.
They grudge you should learn
How the soft plains they look on, lean over
And love (they pretend)
—Cower beneath them, the flat sea-pine crouches,
The wild fruit-trees bend;
E’en the myrtle leaves curl, shrink and shut,
All is silent and grave:
’Tis a sensual and timorous beauty.
How fair! but a slave.”
[Illustration: MONTE FAITO, CASTELLAMARE]
We descend by the slopes of Monte Faito in the quiet of the evening,
facing the distant headland of Posilipo and the sunset, where above the
horizon we see collecting thick masses of dark purple cloud, which augur a
stormy morrow. Above us the peak of the Archangel is already wreathed in
garlands of white mist, a sure sign of coming tempest, and it is amid a
lurid light from the sinking sun that we hasten downwards, bending our
steps in the direction of Pozzano, where the form of its convent stands
out sharply defined against the background of the Bay. Night is rapidly
approaching, and in the gathering darkness as we strike the road below the
convent, we can already hear the ominous roaring and seething of the
waters under the cliff, lashed to fury by the first deep breaths of the
coming squall. Hurrying along the broad smooth roadway it is not long
before we reach our hotel door, where we bid good night to Vincenzo, just
as the first heavy drops of rain have begun to fall; pleasantly exhausted
after our long excursion, we are ready to appreciate to the full the
warmth and good cheer of the hospitable Hotel Quisisana.