Baiæ.
We took a hot bath under the soi-disant villa of Lucullus. Steam, sulphur, and hot water, may be had cheap any where along this coast. An awful place it was to enter naked, and be kept in the dark, stifling, as we were, for some seconds which seemed minutes, till our guide returned with a milord's dressing-gown, which he assured us had been hung up as a votive offering for cured rheumatism. Being candidates ourselves for a similar benefit, we desired to be rubbed down like milord, till aluminous perspiration stood thick upon us, the alum being deposited from the walls and atmosphere of the place. We were soon obliged to beg for quarter. The milord, whose dressing-gown we were possessed of, was so bad as to be obliged to be rubbed sitting; but so powerful is the remedy, that after fifteen such sittings, he walked round the lake (two miles), and went home in his carriage "guerito!" "Such baths!" that had cured he knew not how many persons:—
"Men who'd spent all upon physician's fees,
Who'd never slept, nor had a moment's ease,
Were now as roaches sound, and all as brisk as bees!"—Crabbe.
What with its hot water, sulphur, vapour, and alum, we too should have fancied Naples might have been comparatively exempt from rheumatisms and skin diseases, in both of which it abounds.
Lucrine and Avernus Lakes.
From the sea and its inlet called the Lucrine Lake, we pass along a pleasant green lane, about a mile long, which issues on Avernus, whose waters we find both limpid and clear; but are instructed that two months later will change them to a dark-red colour, and that the neighbourhood will then become very malarious and unsafe. A piece of semicircular wall on one side of the lake, indicates the whereabouts of a temple of Proserpine, or Apollo, or any god or goddess you please. We were so absurd as to pay a scudo to be taken through a vile tunnel, accompanied by two torch-bearers, and two other dirty wretches, who often carry us pick-a-back through one black hole into another, splashing us through dark pools, putting us down here and there as they pleased, picking us up again, grinning like demons, and by dint of shaking their torches above, and disturbing the water below, raising foul smells enough to intoxicate fifty Sybils. At length, half suffocated by those classical delights, we cry Enough! enough! and beg to be put into our saddles again. The Stufa di Nerone, a little further on the high-road, is another volcanic calidarium in full activity, where you may boil eggs or scald yourself in a dark cavern. There you may deposit your mattrass and yourself in any one of a store of berths wrought into that most unpicturesque tufa, of which the exterior face constitutes the whole of the sea view of Baiæ. If ever there were decorations in these caverns, they are gone; but there probably never were. Diana, Mercury, Venus, and Apollo all claim brick tenements, called temples, in this little bay, all close together on the seaside, and none having any claim at present either on the artist or the poet.
We quit the seaside at this spot, and reach the summit of the hill above, where there is more torch-work and more disappointment for those that go a Sybil-seeking with the sixth book of Virgil for a guide. Those who like it may also grope their way through Nero's prisons, and descend into the Piscina Mirabilis, that vast pilastered cellar like an underground dissenting chapel. They say the Roman fleet was supplied with water from this huge tank; but if this had been the intention of its construction, why obstruct it with more pillars or supports of square masonry than the roof absolutely required, without which incumbrances a reservoir of half its size would have held more water,—and for water it was evidently meant? Ascending the hill we see a man or two working away at a newly-discovered tomb, from which he told us he had removed several skulls in perfect preservation, even to the teeth of both jaws, together with some small sepulchral lamps and old copper coins. We dine on the summit of a low hill, immediately opposite a cape better known to fame than the Cape of Good Hope—the promontory of Misenum, with Procida and Ischia on our right, and Nisida with its white lazaretto, and Puteoli (Pozzuoli,) where St Paul landed, on our left. We took to plant collecting after dinner, and were glad to learn that we should find at Puzzuoli a celebrated botanist of the locality, who could declare to us the unknown of all we should collect. On our return, therefore, the man of science was fetched to look at our wild nose-gay and at us. We show him a specimen; he calls it by some outlandish name; we tell him what we want is its Latin one. It is Latin, he says, which he is actually speaking! We thought not. A crowd of fishermen and rustics are fast collecting around us; we try him with another one of the grasses. "Questo è asparago," cries a bumpkin, unasked, from behind. "Che asparagi?" says il mio Maestro, "è Pimpinella." We show him a Cytisus, and he calls it a Campanula. Seeing that so great a difference exists between our friend and Linnæus, we ask no further questions.
Tench and eels abound in Avernus, and coot and teal also blunder here occasionally, as if to contradict Virgil and confute etymology—for Avernus is αορνος (birdless,) and Latinised as every one knows. However, few birds are to be found here. The Lucrine is now a mere salt-water pond of small extent, affording the little sea fish, in rough weather, a sort of playground. No Lucrine oysters now, though these dainties are of excellent quality at Naples, and might have satisfied Montanus himself. As to the Mare Mortuum, it is another rank, unwholesome, unpicturesque pond. We walked all round it, and have a right to say so; and, if we had done so twice after sunset, might perchance have had to say more.
Procida.
"Ego vel Prochytam præpono Suburræ," says Juvenal, and so would we if compelled to live in that nasty St Giles's beyond the Coliseum; but as the "vel" seems strangely misapplied—for the situation of Procida must always have been delightful—the poet's preference must be understood as of a dull unlively place, with few inhabitants or resources, to a dense and dangerous population. Baiæ itself is not three miles from Procida; but the Roman Baiæ was thronged with good society, and this little island was doubtless then as unpeopled as it is now populous. Procida is about three-fourths of an hour's fair rowing from Miniseolæ, on the Baian side; but you may run your boat over on a fine day in half an hour. As you approach the houses, you discern the not unpicturesque frontage of a little fishing town; but all is as revolting within as fair without. Something of the Greek or Albanese costume is still preserved here, and they offer to dress up one of their families in full parure for our further satisfaction, if we will pay them. The view from the leads of the fort (under which the galley-slaves are confined) is fine indeed! Ischia and Vesuvius, and the whole stretch of the bay, and Sorrento, and the promontory of Minerva. Procida builds good enough trading vessels. We saw two in the harbour of Baiæ, as we rowed back on a delicious evening towards sunset; they were going on a first voyage, bound for our London docks;—and à propos of the London docks, all this country is, as it always was, rich in productive vineyards and bad wine. Every hill once gave its own epithet to wines celebrated in longs and shorts of immortal celebrity, whereas the land round Rome could never have been viniferous. You may still drink Falernian, if so minded, on its native seat of St Agatha. The wine of Gaurus has not deserted Monte Babaro, and Lachryma, though not classical, has its own celebrity; and the islands of Ischia and Procida also produce a strong, heating, white wine. But there is not any wine, from the Alps to Messina, to be compared to those of the Garonne, and the Rhine, or the Moselle. The Barbarians subdued by the Roman legions have long had it all their own way, not only in this, but in every other good thing except sunshine; but the vine, growing as it grows, suspended as it is suspended, and wreathed round the hills of Italy, is still the plant which secures the loudest admiration of the foreigner. "The vine of Italy for ever!"—so we join the chorus of all travellers, and say-"till it lies bruised, bleeding, fermenting in the vat! then commend us to the Bacchus of lands far nearer home." And here, feeling ourselves called upon for a song, we will sing one.