This morning in two carriages, for there were eight of us, we went for the drive from Sorrento to Amalfi. The road, cut out of the rock, with a balustrade of stone to protect the traveler from the precipice, is regarded as one of the finest pieces of engineering in existence. Sometimes a viaduct, perhaps five hundred feet high, will span a chasm. The road winds up and around the mountain, and the view, with the Bay of Naples at its feet, is sublimely picturesque. The almost perpendicular sides of the mountain, on the different levels, are terraced and planted with olive, lemon, or other fruit trees.
The drive was ended at Vietri about five, and we returned to Naples by train, having our first glimpse of Pompeii and our first ride on an Italian railway.
It rained in torrents all day, but, nothing daunted, we started for the Customs. That sounds very commonplace and innocent, but it spells a mad, wild sort of a time. In the first place, we had to beg, borrow, and finally to steal a facchino (porter), and induce him to get a boatman to fetch our luggage from the ship, fully a mile out in the bay. We paid him first to show there were no hard feelings, again to get a tarpaulin to cover the luggage, and again and again for—I know not what.
AMALFI
Then we sat down and waited—stood up and waited—purchased all the postcards in the little café and wrote to every one we knew—waited some more, and, finally—yes, they came. There was another transferring of coins—always from my hand into that of the facchino—then the Customs with its fees, and the cabman with his, and all the time I had to take their word for the change, for I had not mastered the lira.
Before leaving Naples we visited Pompeii. I was disappointed at first with these wonderful ruins. There is much that one must imagine. One must take the word of the guides for everything, and they have a little way of "space-filling" which has lost its charm for me. But Pompeii grew on me each moment of my stay. We were taken in a sedan chair carried on the shoulders of two strong peasants. The general appearance is that of a town which has been swept by a tornado, unroofing the houses and leaving only the walls standing. It is on these walls that one finds the exquisite bits of coloring which has given us the Pompeian tints.