“Roused by ‘an awful rose of dawn’ which turned every solemn slope to strange amber and amethyst, we left that rocky eyrie next day, returning by way of Anticoli—beloved of artists. And if the ascent had qualified us for Alpine climbers, the descent qualified us as members of the Italian cavalry corps. Pictures of officers riding down the face of cliffs will never impress us again; we know now it is the very simplest of ‘stunts.’ Our way down was diversified by the tinkling of thousands of sheep-bells, by the far too close proximity of bulls to Maria’s crimson headdress, which nothing in the world would induce her to remove, and by sundry meetings with relations, long-unseen friends, and strangers, from whom we culled the whole register of deaths, births, marriages, and happenings for a month past. At last, beside a little bridge near the railroad station, Leonardo addressed his ten-thousandth adjuration to Beppino, whose poor little legs trembled under him. It was no longer, ‘Ah, sacred one!—don’t you see Anticoli!’—or ‘the rock,’ or whatever it might be; now he said, ‘Ah, sacred one!—don’t you comprehend?—the Signora descends’—and Beppino looked distinctly pleased.
“Here we demanded the reckoning, skilfully evaded hitherto.
“‘Well—a franc for each beast,—and half a franc for the room,—the rest was nothing—a sciocchezza.’
“A franc apiece!—half a franc!—were we brigands that we should do this thing?”
This typical picture of idyllic days in Italy, enjoyed in the impromptu excursion and trip, reveals the delicacy of feeling and the sunny kindness that characterize the contadini and which imparts to any social contact with them a grace and sweetness peculiar to Italian life. There are parts of Italy where it is still the Middle Ages and no hint of the twentieth century has yet penetrated. The modern spirit has almost taken possession of Rome; it is largely in evidence in Florence and even Venice, and it dominates Milan; but in most of the “hill towns” and in the little hamlets and lonely haunts where a house is perhaps improvised out of the primeval rock, the prevailing life is still mediæval, and only awakens on festa days into any semblance of activity.
Somewhere, away up in the hills, several miles from Pegli,—on the Mediterranean coast near Genoa,—is one of these sequestered little hill towns called Acqua Sacra. The name is obvious, indeed, for the sound of the “sacred water” fills the air, falling from every hillside and from the fountain of the acqua sacra by the church. Pilgrims come from miles around to drink of these waters. Each house in this remote little hamlet is of solid stone, resembling a fortress on a small scale, and the houses cling to the hillsides like mosses to a rock. Though far up in the mountains, the hills rise around the hamlet like city walls, as if the life of all the world were kept outside. The unforeseen visit to these remote hamlets, suddenly chancing upon some small centre of happy and half-idyllic life, is one of the charms of tourist travel in this land of ineffable loveliness.
RUINS OF THE GREEK THEATRE, TAORMINA, SICILY
The approach to Italy, by whatever direction, by land or by sea, one enters, is one of magical beauty. Whether one enters from the Mediterranean or from the Adriatic, or by means of the Mont Cenis, the Simplon, or the St. Gothard pass, through the sublime mountain wall, each gateway is marvellous in attraction. Approaching from the seas that completely surround Italy except on one side, the almost undreamed-of splendor of Naples, Genoa, and Venice, as seen from off the shore, exceeds all power of painter or poet to reproduce. The precipitous coast of Sicily; the picturesque city of Palermo; the wonderful ruins of the Greek theatre on the heights in Taormina,—all enchant the tourist. To anchor off Naples, in the beautiful bay, serves the purpose of an hotel out at sea. It is like living in Venice—only more so! By the little rowboats one may go, at any moment, to Naples, and it is more delightful than passing the days in the city itself. For at night as one strolls or sits on deck what a picture is before the eye! All Naples, on her semicircular shores, with her terraced heights rising above, defined in a blaze of electric lights! Genoa, la Superba, is still more magnificent when seen from the sea; and Venice, rising dream-enchanted, completes the wonders of the approach by water.
