Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII
V >> Various >> Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIIIANOTHER ASCENT[10]
BY CHARLES DICKENS
No matter that the snow and ice lie thick upon the summit of Vesuvius,
or that we have been on foot all day at Pompeii, or that croakers
maintain that strangers should not be on the mountain by night, in such
unusual season. Let us take advantage of the fine weather; make the best
of our way to Resina, the little village at the foot of the mountain;
prepare ourselves, as well as we can, on so short a notice, at the
guide's house, ascend at once, and have sunset half-way up, moonlight at
the top, and midnight to come down in!
At four o'clock in the afternoon, there is a terrible uproar in the
little stable-yard of Signor Salvatore, the recognized head guide, with
the gold band round his cap; and thirty under-guides who are all
scuffling and screaming at once, are preparing half-a-dozen saddled
ponies, three litters, and some stout staves, for the journey. Every one
of the thirty quarrels with the other twenty-nine, and frightens the six
ponies; and as much of the village as can possibly squeeze itself into
the little stable-yard, participates in the tumult, and gets trodden on
by the cattle.
After much violent skirmishing, and more noise than would suffice for
the storming of Naples, the procession starts. The head guide, who is
liberally paid for all the attendants, rides a little in advance of the
party; the other thirty guides proceed on foot. Eight go forward with
the litters that are to be used by and by; and the remaining
two-and-twenty beg. We ascend, gradually, by stony lanes like rough
broad flights of stairs, for some time. At length, we leave these, and
the vineyards on either side of them, and emerge upon a bleak, bare
region where the lava lies confusedly, in enormous rusty masses; as if
the earth had been plowed up by burning thunder-bolts. And now, we halt
to see the sunset. The change that falls upon the dreary region and on
the whole mountain, as its red light fades, and the night comes on--and
the unutterable solemnity and dreariness that reign around, who that has
witnessed it, can ever forget!
It is dark, when after winding, for some time, over the broken ground,
we arrive at the foot of the cone, which is extremely steep, and seems
to rise, almost perpendicularly, from the spot where we dismount. The
only light is reflected from the snow, deep, hard, and white, with which
the cone is covered. It is now intensely cold, and the air is piercing.
The thirty-one have brought no torches, knowing that the moon will rise
before we reach the top. Two of the litters are devoted to the two
ladies; the third, to a rather heavy gentleman from Naples, whose
hospitality and good-nature have attached him to the expedition, and
determined him to assist in doing the honors of the mountain. The rather
heavy gentleman is carried by fifteen men; each of the ladies by
half-a-dozen. We who walk, make the best use of our staves; and so the
whole party begin to labor upward over the snow--as if they were toiling
to the summit of an antediluvian Twelfth-cake.
We are a long time toiling up; and the head guide looks oddly about him
when one of the company--not an Italian, tho an habitue of the mountain
for many years: whom we will call, for our present purpose, Mr. Pickle
of Portici--suggests that, as it is freezing hard, and the usual footing
of ashes is covered by the snow and ice, it will surely be difficult to
descend. But the sight of the litters above, tilting up, and down, and
jerking from this side to that, as the bearers continually slip, and
tumble, diverts our attention, more especially as the whole length of
the rather heavy gentleman is, at that moment, presented to us
alarmingly foreshortened, with his head downward.
The rising of the moon soon afterward, revives the flagging spirits of
the bearers. Stimulating each other with their usual watchword,
"Courage, friend! It is to eat maccaroni!" they press on, gallantly, for
the summit.
From tingeing the top of the snow above us with a band of light, and
pouring it in a stream through the valley below, while we have been
ascending in the dark, the moon soon lights the whole white mountain
side, and the broad sea down below, and tiny Naples in the distance, and
every village in the country round. The whole prospect is in this lovely
state, when we come upon the platform on the mountain-top--the region of
fire--an exhausted crater formed of great masses of gigantic cinders,
like blocks of stone from some tremendous waterfall, burned up; from
every chink and crevice of which, hot, sulfurous smoke is pouring out;
while, from another conical-shaped hill, the present crater, rising
abruptly from this platform at the end, great sheets of fire are
streaming forth; reddening the night with flame, blackening it with
smoke, and spotting it with red-hot stones and cinders, that fly up into
the air like feathers, and fall down like lead. What words can paint the
gloom and grandeur of this scene!
The broken ground; the smoke; the sense of suffocation from the sulfur;
the fear of falling down through the crevices in the yawning ground; the
stopping, every now and then, for somebody who is missing in the dark
(for the dense smoke now obscures the moon); the intolerable noise of
the thirty; and the hoarse roaring of the mountain; make it a scene of
such confusion, at the same time, that we reel again. But, dragging the
ladies through it, and across another exhausted crater to the foot of
the present volcano, we approach close to it on the windy side, and then
sit down among the hot ashes at its foot, and look up in silence;
faintly estimating the action that is going on within, from its being
full a hundred feet higher, at this minute, than it was six weeks ago.
There is something in the fire and roar, that generates an irresistible
desire to get nearer to it. We can not rest long, without starting off,
two of us on our hands and knees, accompanied by the head guide, to
climb to the brim of the flaming crater, and try to look in. Meanwhile,
the thirty yell, as with one voice, that it is a dangerous proceeding,
and call to us to come back; frightening the rest of the party out of
their wits.
What with their noise, and what with the trembling of the thin crust of
ground, that seems about to open underneath our feet and plunge us in
the burning gulf below (which is the real danger, if there be any); and
what with the flashing of the fire in our faces, and the shower of
red-hot ashes that is raining down, and the choking smoke and sulfur; we
may well feel giddy and irrational, like drunken men. But, we contrive
to climb up to the brim, and look down, for a moment, into the hell of
boiling fire below. Then, we all three come rolling down; blackened, and
singed, and scorched, and hot, and giddy; and each with his dress alight
in half-a-dozen places.
You have read, a thousand times, that the usual way of descending, is,
by sliding down the ashes; which, forming a gradually-increasing ledge
below the feet, prevent too rapid a descent. But, when we have crossed
the two exhausted craters on our way back, and are come to this
precipitous place, there is (as Mr. Pickle has foretold) no vestige of
ashes to be seen; the whole being a smooth sheet of ice.
In this dilemma, ten or a dozen of the guides cautiously join hands, and
make a chain of men; of whom the foremost beat, as well as they can, a
rough track with their sticks, down which we prepare to follow. The way
being fearfully steep, and none of the party--even of the thirty--being
able to keep their feet for six paces together, the ladies are taken out
of their litters, and placed, each between two careful persons; while
others of the thirty hold by their skirts, to prevent their falling
forward--a necessary precaution, tending to the immediate and hopeless
dilapidation of their apparel. The rather heavy gentleman is abjured to
leave his litter too, and be escorted in a similar manner; but he
resolves to be brought down as he was brought up, on the principle that
his fifteen bearers are not likely to tumble all at once, and that he is
safer so, than trusting to his own legs.
In this order, we begin the descent; sometimes on foot, sometimes
shuffling on the ice; always proceeding much more quietly and slowly
than on our upward way; and constantly alarmed by the falling among us
of somebody from behind, who endangers the footing of the whole party,
and clings pertinaciously to anybody's ankles. It is impossible for the
litter to be in advance, too, as the track has to be made; and its
appearance behind us, overhead--with some one or other of the bearers
always down, and the rather heavy gentleman with his legs always in the
air--is very threatening and frightful. We have gone on thus, a very
little way, painfully and anxiously, but quite merrily, and regarding it
as a great success--and have all fallen several times, and have all been
stopt, somehow or other, as we were sliding away when Mr. Pickle of
Portici, in the act of remarking on these uncommon circumstances as
quite beyond his experience, stumbles, falls, disengages himself, with
quick presence of mind, from those about him, plunges away head
foremost, and rolls, over and over, down the whole surface of the cone!
Giddy, and bloody, and a mere bundle of rags, is Pickle of Portici when
we reach the place where we dismounted, and where the horses are
waiting; but, thank God, sound in limb! And never are we likely to be
more glad to see a man alive and on his feet, than to see him
now--making light of it too, tho sorely bruised and in great pain. The
boy is brought into the Hermitage on the Mountain, while we are at
supper, with his head tied up; and the man is heard of, some hours
afterward. He, too, is bruised and stunned, but has broken no bones; the
snow having, fortunately, covered all the larger blocks of rock and
stone, and rendered them harmless.
CASTELLAMARE AND SORRENTO[11]
BY HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE
The sky is almost clear. Only above Naples hangs a bank of clouds, and
around Vesuvius huge white masses of smoke, moving and stationary. I
never yet saw, even in summer at Marseilles, the blue of the sea so
deep, bordering even on hardness. Above this powerful lustrous azure,
absorbing three-quarters of the visible space, the white sky seems to be
a firmament of crystal. As we recede we obtain a better view of the
undulating coast, embraced in one grand mountain form, all its parts
uniting like the members of one body. Ischia and the naked promontories
on the extreme end repose in their lilac envelop, like a slumbering
Pompeiian nymph under her veil. Veritably, to paint such nature as this,
this violet continent extending around this broad luminous water, one
must employ the terms of the ancient poets, and represent the great
fertile goddess embraced and beset by the eternal ocean, and above them
the serene effulgence of the dazzling Jupiter.
We encounter on the road some fine faces with long elegant features,
quite Grecian; some intelligent noble-looking girls, and here and there
hideous mendicants cleaning their hairy breasts. But the race is much
superior to that of Naples, where it is deformed and diminutive, the
young girls there appearing like stunted, pallid grisets. The railroad
skirts the sea a few paces off and almost on a level with it. A harbor
appears blackened with lines of rigging, and then a mole, consisting of
a small half-ruined fort, reflecting a clear sharp shadow in the
luminous expanse. Surrounding this rise square houses, gray as if
charred, and heaped together like tortoises under round roofs, serving
them as a sort of thick shell.
On this fertile soil, full of cinders, cultivation extends to the shore
and forms gardens; a simple reed hedge protects them from the sea and
the wind; the Indian fig with its clumsy thorny leaves clings to the
slopes; verdure begins to appear on the branches of the trees, the
apricots showing their smiling pink blossoms; half-naked men work the
friable soil without apparent effort; a few square gardens contain
columns and small statues of white marble. Everywhere you behold traces
of antique beauty and joyousness. And why wonder at this when you feel
that you have the divine vernal sun for a companion, and on the right,
whenever you turn to the sea, its flaming golden waves.
With what facility you here forget all ugly objects! I believe I passed
at Castellamare some unsightly modern structures, a railroad station,
hotels, a guard-house, and a number of rickety vehicles hurrying along
in quest of fares. This is all effaced from my mind; nothing remains but
impressions of obscure porches with glimpses of bright courts filled
with glossy oranges and spring verdure, of esplanades with children
playing on them and nets drying, and happy idlers snuffing the breeze
and contemplating the capricious heaving of the tossing sea.
On leaving Castellamare the road forms a corniche[12] winding along the
bank. Huge white rocks, split off from the cliffs above, lie below in
the midst of the eternally besieging waves. On the left the mountains
lift their shattered pinnacles, fretted walls, and projecting crags, all
that scaffolding of indentations which strike you as the ruins of a line
of rocked and tottering fortresses. Each projection, each mass throws
its shadow on the surrounding white surfaces, the entire range being
peopled with tints and forms.
Sometimes the mountain is rent in twain, and the sides of the chasm are
lined with cultivation, descending in successive stages. Sorrento is
thus built on three deep ravines. All these hollows contain gardens,
crowded with masses of trees overhanging each other. Nut-trees, already
lively with sap, project their white branches like gnarled fingers;
everything else is green; winter lays no hand on this eternal spring.
The thick lustrous leaf of the orange-tree rises from amid the foliage
of the olive, and its golden apples glisten in the sun by thousands,
interspersed with gleams of the pale lemon; often in these shady lanes
do its glittering leaves flash out above the crest of the walls. This is
the land of the orange. It grows even in miserable court-yards,
alongside of dilapidated steps, spreading its luxuriant tops everywhere
in the bright sunlight. The delicate aromatic odor of all these opening
buds and blossoms is a luxury of kings, which here a beggar enjoys for
nothing.
I passed an hour in the garden of the hotel, a terrace overlooking the
sea about half-way up the bank. A scene like this fills the imagination
with a dream of perfect bliss. The house stands in a luxurious garden,
filled with orange and lemon-trees, as heavily laden with fruit as those
of a Normandy orchard; the ground at the foot of the trees is covered
with it. Clusters of foliage and shrubbery of a pale green, bordering on
blue, occupy intermediate spaces. The rosy blossoms of the peach, so
tender and delicate, bloom on its naked branches. The walks are of
bright blue porcelain, and the terrace displays its round verdant
masses overhanging the sea, of which the lovely azure fills all space.
I have not yet spoken of my impressions after leaving Castellamare. The
charm was only too great. The pure sky, the pale azure almost
transparent, the radiant blue sea as chaste and tender as a virgin
bride, this infinite expanse so exquisitely adorned as if for a festival
of rare delight, is a sensation that has no equal. Capri and Ischia on
the line of the sky lie white in their soft vapory tissue, and the
divine azure gently fades away surrounded by this border of brightness.
Where find words to express all this? The gulf seemed like a marble vase
purposely rounded to receive the sea. The satin sheen of a flower, the
soft luminous petals of the velvet orris with shimmering sunshine on
their pearly borders, such are the images that fill the mind, and which
accumulate in vain and are ever inadequate. The water at the base of
these rocks is now a transparent emerald, reflecting the tints of topaz
and amethyst; again a liquid diamond, changing its hue according to the
shifting influences of rock and depth; or again a flashing diadem,
glittering with the splendor of this divine effulgence.
CAPRI[13]
BY AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE
The Island of Capri (in the dialect of the people Crapi), the ancient
Capreae, is a huge limestone rock, a continuation of the mountain range
which forms the southern boundary of the Bay of Naples. Legend says that
it was once inhabited by a people called Teleboae, subject to a king
called Telon. Augustus took possession of Capreae as part of the
imperial domains, and repeatedly visited it. His stepson Tiberius (A.D.
27) established his permanent residence on the island, and spent the
latter years of his life there, abandoning himself to the voluptuous
excesses which gave him the name of Caprineus....
The first point usually visited in Capri is the Blue Grotto (Grotta
Azzurra), which is entered from the sea by an arch under the wall of
limestone cliff, only available when the sea is perfectly calm. Visitors
have to lie flat down in the boat, which is carried in by the wave and
is almost level with the top of the arch. Then they suddenly find
themselves in a magical scene. The water is liquid sapphire, and the
whole rocky vaulting of the cavern shimmers to its inmost recesses with
a pale blue light of marvelous beauty. A man stands ready to plunge into
the water when the boats from the steamers arrive, and to swim about;
his body, in the water, then sparkles like a sea-god with phosphorescent
silver; his head, out of the water, is black like that of a Moor.
Nothing can exaggerate the beauty of the Blue Grotto, and perhaps the
effect is rather enhanced than spoiled by the shouting of the boatmen,
the rush of boats to the entrance, the confusion on leaving and reaching
the steamers.
That the Grotta Azzurra was known to the Romans is evinced by the
existence of a subterranean passage, leading to it from the upper
heights, and now blocked up; it was also well known in the seventeenth
century, when it was described by Capraanica. There are other beautiful
grottoes in the cliffs surrounding the island, the most remarkable being
the natural tunnel called the Green Grotto (Grotta Verde), under the
southern rocks, quite as splendid in color as the Grotta Azzurra
itself--a passage through the rocks, into which the boat glides (through
no hole, as in the case of the Grotta Azzurra) into water of the most
exquisite emerald. The late afternoon is the best time for visiting this
grotto. Occasionally a small steamer makes the round of the island,
stopping at the different caverns.
On landing at the Marina, a number of donkey women offer their services,
and it will be well to accept them, for the ascent of about one mile, to
the village of Capri is very hot and tiring. On the left we pass the
Church of St. Costanzo, a very curious building with apse, cupola, stone
pulpit, and several ancient marble pillars and other fragments taken
from the palaces of Tiberius.
The little town of Capri, overhung on one side by great purple rocks,
occupies a terrace on the high ridge between the two rocky promontories
of the island. Close above the piazza stands the many-domed ancient
church, like a mosque, and so many of the houses--sometimes of dazzling
whiteness, sometimes painted in gay colors--have their own little domes,
that the appearance is quite that of an oriental village, which is
enhanced by the palm-trees which flourish here and there. In the piazza
is a tablet to Major Hamill, who is buried in the church. He fell under
French bayonets, when the troops of Murat, landing at Orico, recaptured
the island, which had been taken from the French two years and a half
before (May, 1806) by Sir Sidney Smith.
Through a low wide arch in the piazza is the approach to the principal
hotels. There is a tiny English chapel. An ascent of half an hour by
stony donkey-paths leads from Capri to the ruins called the Villa
Tiberiana, on the west of the island, above a precipitous rock 700 feet
high, which still bears the name of Il Salto....
The visitor who lingers in Capri may interest himself in tracing out the
remains of all the twelve villas of Tiberius. A relief exhibiting
Tiberius riding a led donkey, as modern travelers do now, was found on
the island, and is now in the museum at Naples. Capri has a delightful
winter climate, and is most comfortable as a residence. The natives are
quite unlike the Neapolitans, pleasant and civil in their manners, and
full of courtesies to strangers. The women are frequently beautiful.
POMPEII[14]
BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
We have been to see Pompeii, and are waiting now for the return of
spring weather, to visit, first, Paestum, and then the islands; after
which we shall return to Rome. I was astonished at the remains of this
city; I had no conception of anything so perfect yet remaining. My idea
of the mode of its destruction was this: First, an earthquake shattered
it, and unroofed almost all its temples, and split its columns; then a
rain of light small pumice-stones fell; then torrents of boiling water,
mixed with ashes, filled up all its crevices. A wide, flat hill, from
which the city was excavated, is now covered by thick woods, and you see
the tombs and the theaters, the temples and the houses, surrounded by
the uninhabited wilderness.
We entered the town from the side toward the sea, and first saw two
theaters; one more magnificent than the other, strewn with the ruins of
the white marble which formed their seats and cornices, wrought with
deep, bold sculpture. In the front, between the stage and the seats, is
the circular space, occasionally occupied by the chorus. The stage is
very narrow, but long, and divided from this space by a narrow enclosure
parallel to it, I suppose for the orchestra. On each side are the
consuls' boxes, and below, in the theater at Herculaneum, were found two
equestrian statues of admirable workmanship, occupying the same place
as the great bronze lamps did at Drury Lane. The smallest of the
theaters is said to have been comic, tho I should doubt. From both you
see, as you sit on the seats, a prospect of the most wonderful beauty.
You then pass through the ancient streets; they are very narrow, and the
houses rather small, but all constructed on an admirable plan,
especially for this climate. The rooms are built round a court, or
sometimes two, according to the extent of the house. In the midst is a
fountain, sometimes surrounded with a portico, supported on fluted
columns of white stucco; the floor is paved with mosaic, sometimes
wrought in imitation of vine leaves, sometimes in quaint figures, and
more or less beautiful, according to the rank of the inhabitant. There
were paintings on all, but most of them have been removed to decorate
the royal museums. Little winged figures, and small ornaments of
exquisite elegance, yet remain. There is an ideal life in the forms of
these paintings of an incomparable loveliness, tho most are evidently
the work of very inferior artists. It seems as if, from the atmosphere
of mental beauty which surrounded them, every human being caught a
splendor not his own.
In one house you see how the bed-rooms were managed; a small sofa was
built up, where the cushions were placed; two pictures, one representing
Diana and Endymion, the other Venus and Mars, decorate the chamber; and
a little niche, which contains the statue of a domestic god. The floor
is composed of a rich mosaic of the rarest marbles, agate, jasper, and
porphyry; it looks to the marble fountain and the snow-white columns,
whose entablatures strew the floor of the portico they supported. The
houses have only one story, and the apartments, tho not large, are very
lofty. A great advantage results from this, wholly unknown in our
cities.
The public buildings, whose ruins are now forests, as it were, of white
fluted columns, and which then supported entablatures, loaded with
sculptures, were seen on all sides over the roofs of the houses. This
was the excellence of the ancients. Their private expenses were
comparatively moderate; the dwelling of one of the chief senators of
Pompeii is elegant indeed, and adorned with most beautiful specimens of
art, but small. But their public buildings are everywhere marked by the
bold and grand designs of an unsparing magnificence. In the little town
of Pompeii (it contained about twenty thousand inhabitants), it is
wonderful to see the number and the grandeur of their public buildings.
Another advantage, too, is that, in the present case, the glorious
scenery around is not shut out, and that, unlike the inhabitants of the
Cimmerian ravines of modern cities, the ancient Pompeiians could
contemplate the clouds and the lamps of heaven; could see the moon rise
high behind Vesuvius, and the sun set in the sea, tremulous with an
atmosphere of golden vapor, between Inarime and Misenum.