Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown:

I sit upon the sands alone;

The lightning of the noontide ocean

Is flashing round me, and a tone

Arises from its measured motion,

How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion?”

But it must be admitted that the seashore by Torre del Greco does not often lend itself as a suitable spot for romantic or solitary communings with nature; it is a busy place where the struggle for life is keen and practical enough, and its inhabitants have little time or inclination to bestow on the pursuit of poetry. As in all the towns of the Terra di Lavoro, as this collection of human ant-hills on [pg 15]the eastern side of Naples is sometimes designated, the old command given to the first parents of mankind—“by the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread”—is scrupulously observed in Torre del Greco. It is little enough, however, that these frugal people demand, for a hunk of coarse bread, tempered with a handful of beans or an orange in winter or with a slice of luscious pink water-melon or a few figs in summer, is thought to constitute a full meal in this climate; nor are these simple viands washed down by anything more potent than a draught of mezzo-vino, the weak sour wine of the country. A dish of maccaroni or a plateful of kid or veal garnished with vegetables is a treat to be reserved for a marriage or some great Church festival, whilst a chicken is regarded as a luxury in which only gran’ signori of boundless wealth can afford to indulge. Amongst the many classes of toilers with which populous Torre del Greco abounds, that of the coral-fishers is perhaps the most interesting. There is pure romance in the very notion of hunting for the beautiful coloured substance lying hidden in the crystalline depths of the Mediterranean, and its quest is not a little suggestive of azure caverns beneath the waves, peopled by soft-eyed mermaids and strange iridescent fishes. As a matter of fact, it would be difficult to name a harder occupation or a more dismal monotonous existence than that of the coral-fishers, many hundreds of whom leave this little port every spring in order to spend the summer months on the coasts of Tripoli, Sardinia, or Sicily. The men employed, who work under contract during some six months of unending drudgery, are by no means all natives of Torre del Greco, but are [pg 16]collected from various places of the neighbourhood, not a few of them being thrifty youths from Capri, who are eager to amass as quickly as possible the lump sum of money requisite to permit of marriage. It is true that the amount actually paid by the owners of the coral fleet sounds proportionately large, yet it is in reality poor enough recompense when measured by the ceaseless toil, the burning heat and the wretched food, which the venture entails. The lot of the coral-fisher has however much improved of late years, partly by measures of government which now compel the contractors to treat their servants more humanely, and partly by the fact that the practice of emigration in Southern Italy has reduced the numbers of applicants for the coral-fishing business and has thereby, indirectly at least, raised wages and bettered the old conditions of service. A truly pitiable account is given of these poor creatures some thirty years ago by an English writer, whose knowledge of the Neapolitan people and character remains probably unsurpassed; and it is some satisfaction to reflect that even in Mr Stamer’s day the bad old oppressive system had already been somewhat tempered for the benefit of these white slaves, who for nearly half the round of the year were worse treated than King Bomba’s unhappy victims in the pestilent prisons of Naples and Gaeta.

[A CAPRIOTE FISHERMAN’S WIFE]

“Badly paid, badly fed, and hard worked is the poor coral-fisher. Compared with his, the life of a galley-slave is one of sybaritical indolence. His treatment was, until very recently, not one whit better than that of the poor oppressed negro as he existed in the vivid imagination of Mrs Harriet Beecher Stowe; im[pg 17]measurably worse than that of the real Simon Pure. The thirty ducats for which he sold his seven months’ services once paid, he was just as much a slave as Uncle Tom of pious memory, harder worked, more brutally handled. His padrone was a sea-monster, alongside of whom Mr Legree would have seemed a paragon of Quaker-like gentleness and amiability. His word was law and a rope’s end well laid on his sole reply to any remonstrance on the part of his bondsmen. For six days out of the seven he kept them working incessantly, not unfrequently on the seventh into the bargain, if the weather was favourable; and that they might be strong, hearty and able to haul away, their food consisted of dry biscuits; a dish of maccaroni with just sufficient oil to make the sign of the cross being served out for the Sunday’s dinner.”[1]