By the Ionian Sea: Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy

and bind each other’s hair by the wayside, and meals are cooked and

eaten al fresco as of old. But one can see these things elsewhere,

and Santa Lucia was unique. It has become squalid. In the grey light of

this sad billowy sky, only its ancient foulness is manifest; there

needs the golden sunlight to bring out a suggestion of its ancient

charm.

Has Naples grown less noisy, or does it only seem so to me? The men

with bullock carts are strangely quiet; their shouts have nothing like

the frequency and spirit of former days. In the narrow and thronged

Strada di Chiaia I find little tumult; it used to be deafening. Ten

years ago a foreigner could not walk here without being assailed by the

clamour of cocchieri; nay, he was pursued from street to street,

until the driver had spent every phrase of importunate invitation; now,

one may saunter as one will, with little disturbance. Down on the

Piliero, whither I have been to take my passage for Paola, I catch but

an echo of the jubilant uproar which used to amaze me. Is Naples really

so much quieter? If I had time I would go out to Fuorigrotta, once, it

seemed to me, the noisiest village on earth, and see if there also I

observed a change. It would not be surprising if the modernization of

the city, together with the state of things throughout Italy, had a

subduing effect upon Neapolitan manners. In one respect the streets are

assuredly less gay. When I first knew Naples one was never, literally

never, out of hearing of a hand-organ; and these organs, which in

general had a peculiarly dulcet note, played the brightest of melodies;

trivial, vulgar if you will, but none the less melodious, and dear to

Naples. Now the sound of street music is rare, and I understand that

some police provision long since interfered with the soft-tongued

instruments. I miss them; for, in the matter of music, it is with me as

with Sir Thomas Browne. For Italy the change is significant enough; in

a few more years spontaneous melody will be as rare at Naples or Venice

as on the banks of the Thames.

Happily, the musicians errant still strum their mandoline as you dine.

The old trattoria in the Toledo is as good as ever, as bright, as

comfortable. I have found my old corner in one of the little rooms, and

something of the old gusto for zuppa di vongole. The homely wine of

Posillipo smacks as in days gone by, and is commended to one’s lips by

a song of the South. . . .

Last night the wind changed and the sky began to clear; this morning I

awoke in sunshine, and with a feeling of eagerness for my journey. I

shall look upon the Ionian Sea, not merely from a train or a steamboat

as before, but at long leisure: I shall see the shores where once were

Tarentum and Sybaris, Croton and Locri. Every man has his intellectual

desire; mine is to escape life as I know it and dream myself into that

old world which was the imaginative delight of my boyhood. The names of

Greece and Italy draw me as no others; they make me young again, and

restore the keen impressions of that time when every new page of Greek

or Latin was a new perception of things beautiful. The world of the

Greeks and Romans is my land of romance; a quotation in either language

thrills me strangely, and there are passages of Greek and Latin verse

which I cannot read without a dimming of the eyes, which I cannot

repeat aloud because my voice fails me. In Magna Graecia the waters of

two fountains mingle and flow together; how exquisite will be the

draught!

I drove with my luggage to the Immacolatella, and a boatman put me

aboard the steamer. Luggage, I say advisedly; it is a rather heavy

portmanteau, and I know it will be a nuisance. But the length of my

wanderings is so uncertain, its conditions are so vaguely anticipated.

I must have books if only for rainy days; I must have clothing against

a change of season. At one time I thought of taking a mere wallet, and

now I am half sorry that I altered my mind. But----

We were not more than an hour after time in starting. Perfect weather.

I sang to myself with joy upon the sunny deck as we steamed along the

Bay, past Portici, and Torre del Greco, and into the harbour of Torre

Annunziata, where we had to take on cargo. I was the only cabin

passenger, and solitude suits me. All through the warm and cloudless

afternoon I sat looking at the mountains, trying not to see that

cluster of factory chimneys which rolled black fumes above the

many-coloured houses. They reminded me of the same abomination on a

shore more sacred; from the harbour of Piraeus one looks to Athens

through trails of coal-smoke. By a contrast pleasant enough, Vesuvius

to-day sent forth vapours of a delicate rose-tint, floating far and

breaking seaward into soft little fleeces of cirrus. The cone, covered

with sulphur, gleamed bright yellow against cloudless blue.

The voyage was resumed at dinner-time; when I came upon deck again,

night had fallen. We were somewhere near Sorrento; behind us lay the

long curve of faint-glimmering lights on the Naples shore; ahead was