BY JAMES B. MARSHALL.
"Did you ever see any blue-colored people?" asked Miss Bertha, aged ten, shortly after my introduction to that young lady at Naples. I was forced to confess that, though my acquaintances had shaded from white to black, and brown to red, I had never been fortunate enough to boast of a blue one.
"Oh, I saw 'most a hundred the other day!" said she, triumphantly. "Then did you ever see a silver-colored man?"
"A silver-colored man? Miss Bertha dear, I have an idea that you have been to fairy-land."
"He was a real silver-colored man," said she, very earnestly.
"I suppose he was the King of the fairy-land you went to."
"Oh no, he wasn't; he was a big boatman. But it was just like fairy-land; it was splendid!—really, just splendid!"
It proved that the dear little enthusiast had been, a few days previous, on a visit to the Island of Capri to see the famous Blue Grotto; since which she had been startling people with her descriptions of blue folks and a silver man.
Seeing that I couldn't have a better guide than Miss Bertha, the next morning we and a jovial party went on board of the tiny steamer that plies between Naples and the eighteen miles distant Island of Capri, hollowed under the cliffs of which the Blue Grotto is situated. The Bay of Naples, you know, is called the most beautiful in the world, and a sail across it is a lovely thing in itself. There are such glorious blue skies overhead, and such clear blue waters underneath, that the steamer appears to bear one through the air between two skies. Then, close to Naples, is seen that wonderful volcano, Vesuvius, with always a cloud of smoke curling lazily out of its crater. And, besides, the white houses of Naples are so built on a hill-side, the streets climbing to the top, that a few miles away that too is a handsome sight. Miss Bertha told me that they were the marble steps to the giant's palace, whose bird was carrying us to the enchanted island to show us the giant's jewel-room. Capri then looked like a distant light-house, merely a brown rock rising out of the sea.
As we went bobbing over the waves it grew higher and higher, which Miss Bertha explained was the correct thing for it to do, until, when the steamer anchored a little distance from its cliffs, it rose straight up from the water to a dizzy height. A flock of little skiffs crowded around the steamer for the passengers, and Miss Bertha, taking charge of me, led me into one.