The Lightning Conductor: The Strange Adventures of a Motor-Car

by C. N. Williamson; A. M. Williamson

P.S.-I wouldn't post my Naples letter. I thought if I did, you might imagine that we and our car had been engulphed in the sea, unless you got the end of the adventure tacked on to the beginning; so this is to be a fat postscript. Yes, a gorged python of a postscript.

At first the dock people couldn't be persuaded that we seriously intended to take an automobile to the island of Capri; and when they realised that we were in earnest, they buzzed with excitement like swarming bees. Everyone directly or indirectly concerned argued at the top of his voice, and embroidered his arguments with gestures, nobody paying the slightest attention to anybody else. We didn't even ask permission to go on one of the big passenger steamers, for we knew it would be no use; but there's a little sea-chick of a thing called La Sirena, which plies back and forth every day with provisions, luggage, and passengers, to whom cheapness is an object. She was our prey; and as nobody had happened to make a law against transporting motor-cars, simply because nobody had ever thought of taking anything so abnormal since Tiberius used to send his chariots, we could not be restrained.

All the loafers in Naples collected on the quay, and I don't believe anything would have been done for us if Brown hadn't calmly begun to widen the gangway. He had suggested that I should go over in the morning with Aunt Mary on the North German Lloyd that takes the trippers (as he calls them) over for the Blue Grotto, and lunch. But I didn't see it in that light, for I wanted the adventure. Aunt Mary didn't want it at any price, so she was packed off by herself; and when the Lightning Conductor slowly drove the car on board the little Sirena I was by his side. There was a moment of awestruck silence on the quay; but when Brown had gently manœuvred Balzac into position in a clear space on deck, the murmurs of doubt and disapproval turned into a burst of delighted wonder. Brown and I felt like "variety" artistes being applauded for a clever turn, and the appropriate thing would have been to bow and kiss our hands.

But all this was nothing to what was in store for us at the Grande Marina at Capri. If we had gone in one of the bigger steamers, we should have had to get the automobile into a small boat, or perhaps lash it somehow on to two boats; but the Sirena is so small that she can come up along the landing-place, which was one reason why, after Brown had made inquiries, he was willing to go with the fowls and vegetables. The nearer we got to the island, the more beautiful it looked, and as we came in Brown was telling me things about Tiberius' palaces and where they had stood, when suddenly a shout went up from the quay. A group of stalwart women, clustered together there, were laughing and pointing at our car. They belonged to a race of Amazons bred on Capri, whose daily work it is to land heavy goods and carry trunks on their heads to the omnibuses and cabs in waiting at the end of the quay. Before we were fairly in, they swooped like a pack of wolves on the car, laughing and gabbling, and somehow they and Brown landed it on the slippery little quay.

The news that there was an automobile on the island must have flashed around by magic telegraph, for people-swarms of people, more than you would have thought could live on the whole of Capri-came running from everywhere to see us start. I should have been awfully amused if it hadn't been for one thing. Up there at the end of the quay, where we must pass, were half a dozen hotel omnibuses and a long rank of smart cabs, like victorias, with very pretty little horses, whose faces looked incredibly short-perhaps on account of their huge blinders. They had feathers on their heads, and their harness was ornamented with all kinds of strange devices in silver or brass. Sweet little pets they were, that you felt as if you might ask into your house to sit on the hearthrug; and when they saw Balzac they all began to snort and shiver and act as if they were going to faint. Their drivers-in hard, white hats something like our policemen's helmets-flew to the poor beasties' heads; and some laughed, and some looked anxious, some angry.

Evidently the little horses had lived an innocent, peaceful life for years on Capri, and had never heard of railways or steam rollers, much less automobiles. I was so sorry for them, and wished I hadn't been so headstrong, but had been guided by Brown when he advised me to leave Balzac at Naples. However, we couldn't abandon the car on the quay, so we got in and Brown started the motor. Oh, my goodness! every horse went into hysterics! Their drivers held them, and said things soothing or the reverse, according to their bringing-up, but the little things kicked and plunged and doubled up in knots, although Brown drove by as slowly and solemnly as the Dead March in Saul. I thought we should never get past, but when we did the worst was still to come, for we had a steep road to climb up the cliff, and in the distance several cab-horses were trotting down. I begged Brown to stop and let them go by, lest they should jump over into space, so he did; and it was all that he and the drivers of the cabs could do to get the poor horrified little animals past us at all. That experience was enough for me. Brown pointed up towards Anacapri, far, far above Capri proper, on a horn of the mountain, reached only by a narrow but splendidly engineered road winding like a piece of thin wood shaving, or by steep steps cut in the rock by the Phœnicians thousands of years ago. "No," said I sadly, "we'll never drive up to Anacapri on the automobile. I shan't use it once again while we're on the island, and all the horses had better be warned indoors when we go down to take the boat."

But it was a beautiful drive up from the quay to the town of Capri and our hotel. I couldn't help enjoying it a little, in spite of feeling like an incipient murderess. I believe if I'd been on the way to execution I would have enjoyed it. The road swept round to the left, ascending loop after loop, to a saddle of the island lying between two cliffs, crowned with the most picturesque ruins I ever saw. Everywhere you looked was a new picture, and oh! the delicious colour of sky, and sea, and the dove-grey of the cliffs! You can see next to nothing of the town till you come on it; then suddenly you are in a busy piazza, with an old palace or two and a beautiful tower, and everything characteristically Italian, even the sunshine, which is so vivid that it is like a pool of light. Here we made a great deal more excitement before we drove under an old archway and plunged down a steep, stone-paved street filled with gay little shops, and ending with the courtyard of our hotel.

I know you only came to Capri with the "trippers" to see the Blue Grotto, and I feel sorry for you, you poor Dad, because, though the Grotto is so strange and beautiful, it is the thing I care for least of all. Just think, you didn't even stay long enough to see the sunset turn the Faraglioni rocks to brilliant, beaten copper, standing up from clear depths of emerald, into which the clouds drop rose-leaves! You didn't go to the old grey Certosa, for if you had you would certainly have bought it and restored it to use as a sort of "occasional villa," like those nice heroes of Ouida's who say, "I believe, by the way, that is mine," when they are travelling with friends in yachts and pass magnificent palaces which they have quite forgotten on the shores of the Mediterranean or the Italian lakes. You didn't walk along a steep path about twelve inches wide, hanging over a dizzy precipice, to the Arco Naturale-and neither would I if it hadn't been for Brown. I was horribly afraid, but I was ashamed to let him see that, so I struggled along somehow, and it was glorious. We ended the walk by going down a great many steps cut in the rock to the grotto of Mitromania, where they used to worship the sun-god and sacrifice living victims-human beings sometimes. You can see the altar still, and the trough where the blood used to run-ugh! and the secret chambers where they kept the victims.

We stayed a day and two nights in the town of Capri, and should have stopped on till we were ready to leave the island, for it is a charming hotel, with a big garden and a ravishing view; but I got it into my head that I wanted to walk up all the Phœnician steps to Anacapri-there are about eight hundred of them-instead of going up by a mere road, no matter how beautiful. Of course, Aunt Mary was consumed with no such mad ambition, and as she had heard that to go up the steps was like walking up a wall, she was afraid to have me try the ascent alone; so I asked Brown to take me. We started after breakfast; and to go up all the steps we first had to descend to the very shore, near a palace of Tiberius', which is buried under the sea with all its treasures. Doesn't that sound like a fairy story? Then we began going up and up, and we kept meeting peasant girls tripping gaily down in their rope shoes, singing together like happy birds, not even touching with their hands the loaded baskets on their heads. They were so beautiful that they were more like stage peasants than real ones. Their eyes were great stars, and their clear, olive faces were like cameos with a light shining through from behind. They were dressed in the simplest cotton dresses, but their pinks and blues and purples, put on without any regard to artistic contrast, blended together as exquisitely as flowers in a brilliant garden.