The dessert was a fruit, something like our California plum, which I tasted for the first time at the Azores,—the nespera.
After the repast we hired a carriage for Anacapri. The road, hewn out of solid rock, lies along the mountainside, giving us a magnificent view of the bay, with Vesuvius always in sight.
ISOLA DI CAPRI
We caught the Nixe on her return trip to Sorrento. Here, again, the little boats meet us, each bearing the name of its hotel on a silken banner. The boatman shouts out the name of the one he represents until a passenger calls, in turn, his choice. We were going to the Cocumella, and I wish you might have heard the boatman call, in his soft, musical voice, "Co—ceh—m-e-l-l-a! Co—ceh—m-e-l-l-a!" The steward helped us into the boat, and we were rowed to an opening in the cliff. The town lies on the top of perpendicular rocks, and we struggled up five hundred steps cut in a tunnel through the mountain, coming out at the top into the lovely garden of this hotel.
The Cocumella was once a monastery, and its situation is ideal. Here is a place where I should be willing to spend the remainder of my days.
NAPLES:
Ruth is such a brick! She is not afraid of her shadow, and she likes to be alone some time each day. That remark was called forth by the number of tourists one meets who are worn to the bone by companions who are afraid to room alone or to look out of the window alone—to eat, sleep, walk, talk, or pray alone—and who must have some one close by them every moment of the time.
Last night, on our walk about Sorrento, we called at the house of Mr. Marion Crawford.