17
e a
work and drank with some spirit, but our
guides and attendants literally feasted at
our expense. The people from the village had
followed us, men women and children, with
tambourines and proposed to us a dance. We
invited the performers although from our inexpe-
rience we were obliged to decline to join in
it. Our guides with the damsels all
barefoot, but affecting attention to the hair and
shape – danced merrily the Tarantula
the National dance – strongly resembling in their
gesture and motion the dances of our Indians.
They were merry joyous and happy. Seeing that
we enjoyed a joke they featured exercised
their ingenuity in diverting us, at each others
expense, often even at our own. This ball
ended we repaired to the rock where
Tiberius threw down 1200 feet the victims
of his suspicion, and we rambled over
the ruins of the palace that he had
built and that Nero had the Senate of
Rome had caused to be destroyed at his
Death. Before us lay the ruins of the palace
that had Nero had built, its bathes & its
theaters, and in which according to Tacitus –

18
that infamous monarch surrounded himself
with the spirits of the wild and
so far gave himself up to licentiousness as
to coin many with the images and
names of his mistresses. And sure I am
that no where on earth does nature offer so
many attractions and present so many incentives
to luxury and vice engagements which depravity
and vice can permit into the sense of
crime and lust. How strange that the
Poetry and the History of this coast from
the earliest age have impressed us with
this characteristic feature of it and no
others. Our rest was ended – our observa-
tions made – our festivities among the sylphs
and nymphs on the mountain had become
wearisome. We descended from our elevation
of two thousand feet. The sure footed dwarf
horses delivered us safely at Capr the
Town of Capri, just as in part of the
“Grand Hotel of Tiberius” just as a black
cloud began to burst over our head – but I
would not stop. On we went, the rain descended
in a deluge – the stream with its steep
stan ^steep^ descending course became a mere
canal for the mountain torrent, but we

19
Kept on. Our guides took their horses by the
bit and steadied them up – and so at last we
safely descended into the village at the
Landing – but drenched with rain. The pre-
siding nymph of our mountain revels took
us to her house. It was neat and clean
compared with other Italian peasants homes.
She hastily immediately changed her fine
dress for one of every day wear coarse and
patched. Like an honest woman as she
is she brought her husband to greet me,
brought me her own coarse festival day
cotton stockings ^spun and woven by herself^ to ch and sold them to
me for a reasonable price – showed me
her children – and furnished us with all
that was wanted, while we stood waiting
for the rain to cease and the adverse winds
to subside. After two hours, the rain was
over there was a fair wind. Our seamen
drew their bark from the beach and we
entered it and in two hours more landed
again at Sorrento. As we were leaving the
Island of Capri, the market vessel of that
Island returned from Naples, a hollow row
boat, filled with the empty baskets and

20
returning freights. All the parties interested having
the nearly all the adults of the Island male
and female appeared then to great the returning
crew. They harnessed themselves male and
female to the pier and drew the large boat
(or ) high and dry up the
beach, then each took his or her basket
box or crib and carried it off on their
head – barefoot and bareheaded, simple
poor, but merry laughing joyous happy
people.
We slept at the English rooms Hours
after a good dinner, and at five next
morning, returned by carriage and by rail
road to Naples – and thus ends
our acquaintance with the Syrens and
Sybils of Syrentino and Capri, whose
have proved so disastrous to
inexperienced travelers in former times.