I am certain of one thing: in any large excursion party there will be more obstinate people than obstinate donkeys; and yet the poor brutes get all the thwacks and thumps.We are bound to-day for the Punta della Campanella, the extreme point of the promontory, and ten miles away.The path lies up the steps from the new Massa carriage-road, now on the backbone of the ridge, and now in the recesses of the broken country.What an animated picture is the donkeycade, as it mounts the steeps, winding along the zigzags! Hear the little bridlebells jingling, the drivers groaning their " a-e-ugh, a-e-ugh,"the riders making a merry din of laughter, and firing off a fusillade of ejaculations of delight and wonder.
The road is between high walls; round the sweep of curved terraces which rise above and below us, bearing the glistening olive; through glens and gullies; over and under arches, vine-grown,--how little we make use of the arch at home!--round sunny dells where orange orchards gleam; past shrines, little chapels perched on rocks, rude villas commanding most extensive sweeps of sea and shore.The almond trees are in full bloom, every twig a thickly-set spike of the pink and white blossoms; daisies and dandelions are out; the purple crocuses sprinkle the ground, the petals exquisitely varied on the reverse side, and the stamens of bright salmon color; the large double anemones have come forth, certain that it is spring; on the higher crags by the wayside the Mediterranean heather has shaken out its delicate flowers, which fill the air with a mild fragrance; while blue violets, sweet of scent like the English, make our path a perfumed one.And this is winter.
We have made a late start, owing to the fact that everybody is captain of the expedition, and to the Sorrento infirmity that no one is able to make up his mind about anything.It is one o'clock when we reach a high transverse ridge, and find the headlands of the peninsula rising before us, grim hills of limestone, one of them with the ruins of a convent on top, and no road apparent thither, and Capri ahead of us in the sea, the only bit of land that catches any light; for as we have journeyed the sky has thickened, the clouds of the sirocco have come up from the south; there has been first a mist, and then a fine rain; the ruins on the peak of Santa Costanza are now hid in mist.We halt for consultation.Shall we go on and brave a wetting, or ignominiously retreat? There are many opinions, but few decided ones.The drivers declare that it will be a bad time.One gentleman, with an air of decision, suggests that it is best to go on, or go back, if we do not stand here and wait.The deaf lady, from near Dublin, being appealed to, says that, perhaps, if it is more prudent, we had better go back if it is going to rain.It does rain.Waterproofs are put on, umbrellas spread, backs turned to the wind; and we look like a group of explorers under adverse circumstances, "silent on a peak in Darien," the donkeys especially downcast and dejected.Finally, as is usual in life, a, compromise prevails.We decide to continue for half an hour longer and see what the weather is.No sooner have we set forward over the brow of a hill than it grows lighter on the sea horizon in the southwest, the ruins on the peak become visible, Capri is in full sunlight.The clouds lift more and more, and still hanging overhead, but with no more rain, are like curtains gradually drawn up, opening to us a glorious vista of sunshine and promise, an illumined, sparkling, illimitable sea, and a bright foreground of slopes and picturesque rocks.Before the half hour is up, there is not one of the party who does not claim to have been the person who insisted upon going forward.
We halt for a moment to look at Capri, that enormous, irregular rock, raising its huge back out of the sea) its back broken in the middle, with the little village for a saddle.On the farther summit, above Anacapri, a precipice of two thousand feet sheer down to the water on the other side, hangs a light cloud.The east elevation, whence the playful Tiberius used to amuse his green old age by casting his prisoners eight hundred feet down into the sea, has the strong sunlight on it; and below, the row of tooth-like rocks, which are the extreme eastern point, shine in a warm glow.We descend through a village, twisting about in its crooked streets.The inhabitants, who do not see strangers every day, make free to stare at and comment on us, and even laugh at something that seems very comical in our appearance; which shows how ridiculous are the costumes of Paris and New York in some places.Stalwart girls, with only an apology for clothes, with bare legs, brown faces, and beautiful eyes, stop in their spinning, holding the distaff suspended, while they examine us at leisure.At our left, as we turn from the church and its sunny piazza, where old women sit and gabble, down the ravine, is a snug village under the mountain by the shore, with a great square medieval tower.On the right, upon rocky points, are remains of round towers, and temples perhaps.
We sweep away to the left round the base of the hill, over a difficult and stony path.Soon the last dilapidated villa is passed, the last terrace and olive-tree are left behind; and we emerge upon a wild, rocky slope, barren of vegetation, except little tufts of grass and a sort of lentil; a wide sweep of limestone strata set on edge, and crumbling in the beat of centuries, rising to a considerable height on the left.Our path descends toward the sea, still creeping round the end of the promontory.Scattered here and there over the rocks, like conies, are peasants, tending a few lean cattle, and digging grasses from the crevices.The women and children are wild in attire and manner) and set up a clamor of begging as we pass.Agroup of old hags begin beating a poor child as we approach, to excite our compassion for the abused little object, and draw out centimes.