[24] The harbour of refuge for most of the shipwrecked ones who still can and will work. The street scavengers of Paris are to a great extent Italians.
[25] I was for ten years the confidant, the friend, and the doctor to most of the poor Italians in Paris, the greater number of whom are models. My experience during these years was a terrible one. Nine years in Rome have made the evidence still more conclusive. Of English models I know nothing and have nothing to say.
[26] I write here as I talk here—not Italian but Capri dialect. The old Emperor, who lived on the island for eleven years, is never called Tiberio here, but "Timberio."
[27] Our friend old Mr. X——, for fifteen years the delight and ornament of the Piazza of Capri, always cheerful, always thirsty, a great destroyer of quails and wine-bottles, now at last gone to rest in the quiet little field outside the town of Capri, where the sombre green of some laurel and cypress-trees stands out between the waving branches of his favourite plant, the vine. Old Spadaro is still alive, and will tell you all about his lamented master.
[28] Quail bishop. Capri no longer owns a bishop, but the quail harvest still forms one—and perhaps the most important—item of the island's revenue.
[29] Few strangers visit the grotto of Mitromania, the name of which may be derived from Magnum Mitrae Antrum. It faces east, and the first rays of the sun light up its mysterious gloom. One knows from excavations made here that once upon a time the old, yet ever young, sun-god was worshipped in this cave.
[30] Leopardi.
[31] Pumaroli-pomidoro, i.e. tomato, the Southern Italian's favourite fruit, the most important ingredient in everything he eats, sweetening the monotony of his macaroni.
[32] "Let us be off."
[33] The alarm-bell used to be rung from the old tower to warn the shores of the gulf of the approach of pirates.