As we proceed the ground begins to rise, and we see pleasant villas with decent gardens. As we rise so does the dust; for mostly we are shut in between two walls, over which we see the vine hang heavily, or apricots glitter among the green branches on either side. Here and there is a break in the wall, and, seated at rustic tables, peasants and their families are enjoying a holiday, looking under their vine arbours across the blue bay or pleasant Capri, or glancing upward at the smoking mountain above. At one of these wayside publics our driver stops to water horses, which are useful animals, and, in spite of the heat, never turn a hair. We enter the principal room, at one end of which is a big bed, while nearer the door is a table with wine and glasses, and fruit, and specimens of lava and other matters. My friend, with the recklessness of youth, spends his money. I refuse to do anything of the kind; and again our coachman urges on his wild career. He pulls up again as a woman rushes out of her cabin to offer us drink. Again we are tempted, and in vain. Then we reach a level of reeds and rushes, where resides a venerable and unwashed hermit, who sighs as he turns in and thinks of the hardness of our hearts. We are now nearly out of the cultivated land, as we see the gigantic fields of lava on every side; where it can all have come from is a mystery. You can scarcely realize how all this lava – stretched on every hand, far and wide – can ever have come out of that crater. There seems more lava than you could get into the mountain itself; and how terrible must have been the scene when the red-hot lava rushed down the mountain-side, overwhelming green vines, and square-roofed huts, and living animals, and smiling babes, and weak and helpless old age! As it cooled, it seems to have wreathed itself into a thousand fantastic shapes – and yet the scene is fair and tranquil. A small wreath of smoke at the top only suggests a feeble fire within, and down far below the blue Mediterranean sleeps, and gay Naples sparkles, and the great Campagna opens up its vast green solitudes, save where, here and there, a white-stoned villa varies its monotony. Around me animal life exists not. The yellow birch blooms in her golden beauty, that is all, and the common white butterfly of England has the upper airs all to herself.
As we reach the observatory – an oasis in the desert – we meet a couple of sportsmen; they have a gun between them, though why I cannot understand, as I see nothing to shoot at but lizards, and so we are drawn slowly on the dusty road, which zigzags in the most wonderful manner every few yards. We enter through a gateway which, I presume, marks the bounds of the Cook territory, as one of his agents takes a look at our tickets. With joy our brown-faced coachman points us to a white, flat-roofed building, which he declares truly is the hotel, where he intimates we can have lunch, and where he intimates he can do the same if we will supply the cash – which we do, though he had no right to ask it – and weaned and parched we enter the grateful portals of the hotel to feast, and to enjoy a refreshing breeze, which we should have sought for in Naples in vain. As I rested there, I felt no wish to depart either upwards or downwards.
Of course the summer is the bad time for the crater. In the season Cook has his pilgrims, sometimes to the number of 200 a day. The cars are airy and light. As one goes up, another descends, and thus the work goes on under the care of an able German, who caught a fever in Egypt, and has been ordered here for the benefit of his health. The whole country should be called Cooksland. It is there John Cook reigns supreme. Just as I was leaving London a Leicester gentleman said to me: ‘I wonder Mr. Gladstone did not make John Cook a baronet.’ ‘The man who does what Mr. Cook does, for all travellers, whatever their nationality, surely deserves public recognition,’ says a commercial Dutchman to me as I write; ‘I am off to Palermo and Catana and Messina. I have taken Cook’s tickets for all the way.’
I found in my subsequent travels every one of us had more or less to enjoy the assistance of Cook’s agents. In many cases travellers derive great pecuniary benefit from doing so. I remember a friend of mine got some money changed for him by Cook’s agent on very much cheaper terms than he could anywhere else.
Italy is a poor country; yet it displays a sense of humour highly creditable under the circumstances. The site of the Custom House in Naples is locally known as the Immaculate.
CHAPTER V
THE ISLES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
Remember, as the great Dr. Johnson remarks, how life consists not of a series of illustrious actions or elegant enjoyments; the greater part of our time passes in compliance with necessities in the performance of daily duties, in the procurement of petty pleasures; and we are well or ill at ease as the main stream of life glides on smoothly, or is ruffled by small obstacles and frequent interruptions. This is emphatically true as regards life at sea. But as we steam along we see much to attract and excite in the isles of the Mediterranean, that diversify the travel all the way from Marseilles to Jaffa. It is said that there are eighty ports in the Mediterranean, and that into all of them Lord Brassey can take his yacht without a pilot. Alas! I am permitted to tarry at none of them.
As we sail out of the Bay of Naples we pass Capri – a rocky island, where there is scarce a yard of level ground – dear to Englishmen and artists. The highest point of Capri is about 1,960 feet above the sea. The traveller will find there several hotels. Roman remains abound, and Tiberius, the drunken and dissolute, had twelve palaces there. There he was in no fear of unwelcome intrusion, and gave himself up to shameless and unnatural lusts; while his worthy lieutenant, Sejanus, carried on a series of persecutions against all who stood in any relation to the imperial family, or excited the suspicions of the tyrant by freedom of speech, independence of character, or position, or popularity. The famous Blue Grotto of Capri is on the northern side, near the landing. In the great war with France, Sir Hudson Lowe – the same General who had subsequently charge of Bonaparte at St. Helena – had to surrender the island to Murat, after a fortnight’s siege, and had the mortification of seeing reinforcements arrive just after the treaty was signed. Leaving Capri, the Gulf of Salerno opens; Pæstum, with its temples, lying on the southern bight of the gulf. Then follows the elevated headland of Cape Palinure – named after Palinurus, the pilot of Æneas, whose tomb is marked by a tower on the cliff some eight miles northward, thus fulfilling the Sibyl’s promise in the ‘Æneid,’
‘And Palinurus’ name the place shall bear.’
We next get a peep at the now active volcano of Stromboli, and the Lipari Islands to the northward. On these islands, the Insulæ-Eoliæ, also the Vulcaniæ of the ancients, Æolus held the winds enclosed in caverns, letting them blow and howl as it seemed good in his sight. There, too, Vulcan forged the bolts of Jove.
From Naples we steer for Sicily, once, though only for a short time, prosperous under British rule, when we took possession of it in the name of the King of Naples, after he was driven away from Italy by the soldiers of France. Garibaldi handed it over to United Italy. Sicily is a country which is almost unknown to tourists, though in his youth Mr. Gladstone visited the island and wrote: ‘After Etna, the temples are the great charm and attraction of Sicily. I do not know whether there is any one, if taken alone, which exceeds in interest and beauty that of Neptune at Pæstum, but they have the advantage of number and variety as well as of interesting position.’ We pass Catania, which had the most celebrated University in Italy. The present town is comparatively new; many of its more ancient remains are covered with lava; among them the theatre, from which it is probable Alcibiades addressed the people in b. c. 415. What memories rose up before us as we steamed along the Straits of Messina! It was from Syracuse that St. Paul sailed away to Reggio, on the coast