The next day we had the good fortune to meet the Queen while driving in the Villa Doria Pamphilj. That time royalty had no cause to complain. The most loyal of her subjects could not have outdone my obeisance, though it was rendered more to the beautiful woman than to the Queen. She did not descend upon us unawares, like the King the day before. We knew of her coming afar off, for she advertised her approach by the scarlet magnificence of her box-cloth and the blazing uniforms of her coachman and foot-guards. I saw this brilliant turn-out a quarter of a mile away, and, having kings on my mind just then, supposed that His Majesty was taking the air in state. I was relieved and pleased when our driver, pointing his whip at the flaming red spots in the distance, said, “La Regina!” Just at that point in the road stood a line of carriages drawn up in waiting to see the Queen pass. Some of them had been standing there a long time in expectation of the event, for it had become known that she would make the circuit of the Villa Doria Pamphilj that afternoon; and the best place of all to see her was that wide opening in the road, where our victoria had joined the many other carriages. The Queen passed us all at the slowest of paces. Each person in the long line received an individual nod from her, given with exceeding dignity and grace. She is every inch a queen; and that is saying a great deal, for she is of the Junonian order, and her uncommon height is made symmetrical by a generous breadth of shoulders and a satisfying plenitude of bust. Her arms, as guessed at by the outlines of her tight sleeves, are strong and shapely. Her eyes are a deep blue, her hair is a light chestnut, her complexion her own pink and white. People who think of Italians only as swarthy in face, with hair and eyes of jet, do not know of what delicate beauty the race is capable when it strays into the blonde type. Queen Margherita is at the head of the fair branch of the great Italian family. She is the “Pearl of Savoy.” She was dressed with the severest simplicity. There was not a jewel visible, and one did not remember the colors she wore. Her own flower, the daisy, is not less ostentatious. But her native loveliness needs no ornamental setting. She reigns over men’s hearts by her birthright of beauty; and I can think of no better phrase to couple with this than the homely one that she is “just as good as she looks.”
CHAPTER VI. NAPLES—SORRENTO—CAPRI—PÆSTUM.
My sanitary inspection of Naples was hasty, and did not prepare me to give the city a clean bill of health. The streets through which I passed were less dirty than those of New York. Except for certain foul smells on the waterfronts, there was nothing in Naples to alarm the stranger, ever sensitive on the subject of fever and cholera. The light-hearted Neapolitans laugh at the fears of Englishmen and Americans. They are now claiming great things for their city on the strength of their new and copious water-supply. Visitors, however, refuse to believe in its excellence as a beverage, and persist in drinking Apollinaris, Victoria, St. Galmier, Source Badoit, and some other natural or doctored water. It is not for the interest of hotel-keepers to decry those bottled waters, from the sale of which they make large profits. But the landlord of the “Nobile” assured me that none of them can possibly be purer and healthier than the fluid which sparkles untouched in the caraffes on his tables. The water is freely used for sprinkling the streets and sluicing the gutters. The fountains of New York are dried up and mute; but those of Naples play at certain hours of the day, if not from morning to night. They remind us of the abundant jets and cascades which we had, with so much regret, left behind us at Rome. Though the weather in early May is extremely pleasant, and the heat just right for out-of-door exercise, the sun glares at times with Italian fierceness. Then it is refreshing to see the fountains glittering aloft, and to hear the musical splash of their waters in deep marble basins.
The radical improvements which are expected to render Naples one of the healthiest cities of Europe have yet to be made. But they are all planned, and the work has begun on some of them. They include a complete system of sewerage and the construction of long, wide streets through those populous quarters where the sun and fresh air never come now. It was in this swarming, dark, and unventilated district that the cholera did its worst. Toward these great works the Italian Government has contributed ten million dollars, and the city (and province) of Naples eight million more. It is by showing such interest in the fortunes of all her component parts, especially the large cities, that unified Italy deepens her hold upon the affections of her people all over the peninsula.
Snow on Vesuvius in May! The weather at Sorrento flies in the face of all the authorities. We have been warned a hundred times not to visit Southern Italy during the “hot month” of May. At the Hôtel Tramontano we burned little sticks of wood at the rate of a quarter of a cord a day in the vain effort to keep our sitting-room comfortable. Our English friends have misled us in the kindest manner possible. They call the weather warm at 60° Fahr., and hot at 70°. Americans, accustomed to broiling summers at home, find this climate barely genial at the very time when Englishmen are roasted out of it. Therefore, I say, put no faith in their statements where temperature is concerned. Men who never wear overcoats, and who walk twenty miles before breakfast, are no guides for people less hardened. With the exception of one day (strangely enough) in London, and another in Naples, we have not stopped at a hotel where a fire at night was not a necessity as well as an expensive luxury. Of course, the thickness of the walls is responsible for some of the coldness. At Naples I looked down from the balcony of my hotel and watched some masons at work just across the narrow street. They were laying outside walls three feet thick, and walls of two feet between the rooms. The rising structure seemed to be a jail or a bank. I inquired, and found it was designed for an elegant private residence. Yet, for the exclusion of heat, it might as well be a prison, and would look like one, if the walls were not papered and frescoed.
Vesuvius is an ever-fascinating subject of study. I observe it fifty times a day with undiminished interest. The changed position of the sun and every passing cloud, and especially the shifting directions and forms of the “smoke,” make a new picture of the mountain every time. The natives for twenty miles around look upon Vesuvius at once as a barometer and a weather-vane. When the vapor—for such it is for the most part—drifts, they know from what quarter the wind is blowing. The capricious shapes it suddenly assumes at times foretell them of coming storms or calms. I am not yet deep in this lore. But, all the same, it is a pleasure to note the protean changes of the escaping steam. Sometimes it goes straight up to the sky in a long, slender shaft, and at the extreme height opens out like a palm-tree. Then, again, it looks like a mushroom, with a thick stem and a “chunky” top. Often it streams out horizontally at great length, like the smoke of a steamer at sea. When the wind is out of the north or east, accompanied by a slight rain, then I notice that the vapor rolls down the mountain like its own lava. At other times Vesuvius makes a huge white cap or turban for itself—the vapor settling down on the peak and remaining stationary. Frequently this enlarges into a shroud and gradually covers the volcano from head to foot. At night, when the sky is clear, there is only one thing to be seen on Vesuvius—that is the dull-red light which crowns its dark outlines. While under my observation it was in a state of unusual activity. It “worked,” as the phrase is.
One morning “Old Vesuve” (for so one finds himself calling the volcano after a short acquaintance) indicated a change of wind from the northeast to the southwest. This favored an expedition to the famous Blue Grotto of Capri, which can not be entered when the wind is driving the water against and into the narrow opening through which the little boats must pass. I made the trip from Sorrento to Capri by steamer, and was then transferred to a frail-looking but stanch canoe, most skillfully handled. The waves were pretty high—the effect of a storm which had lasted two days. As we neared the portal of the grotto, it seemed impossible to shoot through it, for it is not more than three feet high and three wide, and the water was constantly rushing in and out of it with a deafening roar and showers of spray. At times more than half of the opening was filled with the current, which threatened to dash the fragile bark into splinters and drown the passengers. The boatman himself hesitated. The conditions were much worse than those he usually overcame with ease. But he watched his chances, and, seizing a moment when the current was setting outward, he caught hold of a jutting point of rock, and, by a sudden jerk, swung us in. I had been lying flat in the boat, drenched with spray. Responding to his call, I sat up and looked around.
My first feeling was of disappointment. The grotto is not blue. The wonderful color, of which one hears so much, is in the water. The vault rises to a graceful arch in the center and covers a space—irregular in shape—equal, perhaps, to 125 feet square. Its point of greatest height is thirty or forty feet above the water. The stone is of a dirty white, and the faint reflection of light from its concave surface doubtless has something to do with the production of the phenomenon which gives the grotto its name. The water of the Mediterranean is beautiful under all conditions. One need not penetrate grottoes in order to admire its tints, ever varying on a background of blue. But here the relations of the water to the light of day are unique. I tried to study the thing in cold blood, and these are my conclusions about it: Some of the diffused daylight enters the cave through the only opening above the water-line. This light irradiates the water to a certain depth, and causes the white roof to be reflected in it. A great deal of light also enters beneath the surface of the water, through the opening which descends to the floor of the grotto. This floor also seems to be white (as observed by me) at its depth of (say) fifty feet. It therefore sends back the reflection which the water has already received from the limestone roof. This double effect gives a brilliant silver tone to the inclosed mass of blue water. One hunts in vain for some comparison to convey a clear idea of the unearthly beauty of the spectacle. Sky-blue satin with the sun shining on it would resemble the surface of the water as I saw it. But that simile fails to describe the extraordinary effects of the Blue Grotto. These are mainly derived from the depths, and are best compared to the sheen of silver and blue which are noticed in the heart of a sapphire held up against the sunlight.