Castellammare di Stabia

“ On the north slope of this peninsula, where the plain ends and the coast abruptly bends to the west, stands the town of Castellammare, near the site of Stabiae, at the foot of Monte Sant' Angelo, which rises suddenly from the sea to a height of 4722 ft. Farther west, and nearly opposite to Naples across the bay, are Vico, Meta, Sorrento, Massa and many villages. ”

“ Indeed, one looks forward almost as often, anticipating that day when scholars will combine to assist in the excavation of all the buried regions, when every villa shall be disinterred, and the secrets hidden underneath the vineyards be exposed to the light of day again. Here on the first slopes of the hills around Castellammare lay the groups of country villas which formed ancient Stabiæ, and every man who goes this way longs to see them disinterred. For what is seen at Pompeii is but half the life of Roman days—a city stripped of its country villas and all its rustic intercourse. ”

“ On the mainland no such sense exists, save perhaps in some degree on the Piano di Sorrento. Naples, even in broad daylight, is none too safe, and at night the citizens themselves walk cautiously. Castellammare is a wicked city. Amalfi puts the stranger on his guard instinctively. In Capri, from the very hour of landing, one drops precautions. Suspicions are cast off like bad dreams in this isle of laughter and goodwill; the women on the roads want nothing but a greeting, the men believe you when you say you do not need a carriage. ”

“ Castellammare is a dirty and ill-odorous town. As I hurry through its crowded streets, brushed by women hawking beans and dodging others who are performing certain necessary acts of cleanliness at their house doors, I occupy myself in wondering whether there is in all southern Italy a city without smells. ”

“ The ship-yards of Castellamare di Stabia are more busy than any others in Italy, those of Genoa and Spezia alone excepted. The sailors of the bay are equal to the Ligurians in seamanship, and surpass them as fishermen. The inhabitants of Torre del Greco, who engage in coral-fishing, are well acquainted with the submarine topography of the coasts of Sardinia, Sicily, and Barbary, and the least movement of the air or water reveals phenomena to them which remain hidden to all other eyes. ”

“ The day will come when all this great life of Roman husbandry will be disclosed to us, and we shall know it as we now know the city streets; for it is here still upon the mountain slopes, buried safe beneath the vineyards, waiting only till its vast interest is comprehended by people in sufficient numbers to provide the funds to excavate it. Stabiæ was by no means another Pompeii. It was no city, but a group of farms and country villas, and has countless things to teach us which cannot be seen or learnt beside the Sarno. ”

“ Remains of fine villas have been found about half a mile to the east of the modern town, and also the remains of a temple to the genius of Stabiae, which no doubt occupied the same site as it had done in Oscan times. ”

“ There, virtually in Stamboul, is one of the most beautifully situated bits of land in the world. Though really part of a great city, much of it has not been built upon. Among the trees on the ridge, looking to Marmora and Asia, to the Bosporus and the palaces, to the Golden Horn, Galata, and Pera, lie the many buildings and courts of the Old Seraglio, fairy-like in their wood. The snowy cupolas, the minarets, and towers look ideally Eastern. They suggest romantic and careless lives, cradled in luxury and ease. ”

“ Long before the present convent was built, when the hillside at this spot lay waste and covered with dense herbage, through which the mules going to Sorrento forced their way with labour, the people of Castellammare noticed a flame which sprang up night by night like a signal fire lit to warn ships off the coast. The people looked and trembled, for there were strange beings on the mountain, dwarfs, and what not! No mortal man would make a fire there. ”

“ Thus cast back on a line of dead walls, house-fronts as mean as only a fourth-rate Italian town can boast, one has no other amusement than gazing at the mountains, which in truth are beautiful enough for anyone. Very steep and high they tower above Castellammare; not brown and purple, as when I looked up at them across the broken walls of Pompeii, but clad in their true colours of green of every shade, dark and sombre where ravines are chiselled out upon the slopes, or where the pines lie wet and heavy in the morning shadow. ”

“ It is strange how San Stefano, in spite of herself, like some light little person involuntarily caught into a tragedy, seems fated to be historic. San Stefano is a suburb on the flat northwestern shore of the Marmora that tries perseveringly to be European and gay. San Stefano has straight streets. San Stefano has not very serious-looking houses standing in not very interesting-looking gardens. San Stefano has a yacht-club whose members, possessing no yachts, spend their time dancing and playing bridge. ”

“ To be stayed at the gate of the Sorrento peninsula by doubtful weather is by no means an unmixed misfortune. It may be that our Lady of Pozzano sometimes employs the showers to bring hasty travellers to a better way of thinking. Certainly many people hurry past Castellammare to their own hurt. The town is unattractive, and may, moreover, be reproached with wickedness, though it suffers, as is said, from the low morality of Greek sailors, rather than from any crookedness of its homeborn citizens. But the mountain slopes behind it are immensely beautiful. ”

“ From the Herculaneum Gate nearly to the Stabian Gate, on the south side, ran a bluff, with a sharp descent. Nevertheless, as a gate was needed on the side nearest the sea, the Water Gate, Porta Marina, was placed here; through it a steep road led to the Forum, so steep that it could not have been much used by vehicles; but that may have mattered little to the fishermen bringing their catches to the market.
The Stabian Gate lay in a depression at the end of the lava bed and afforded a more convenient means of access to the city; thence a road ran to the harbor on the Sarno, and to Stabiae. ”

“ For the first time Naples appears to me magically beautiful, for the first time I can gaze undisturbed upon the grand beauty of nature here. Peace, which I have not felt for a long time, steals into my heart. I feel as if I could swing myself into the light air as if I had a hundred wings which drew me to the sun, as if new life came to me. It is worth battling with the storm to feel such heavenly peace. Even the waves of the sea are hushed as though they feared to break the stillness. Everything seems to me to call, ‘Peace, Peace.’ It is too beautiful for words, and the joy is too deep ”

“ Between the Seven Towers and the Golden Horn, were the seven hills of ancient Stamboul, the towering arches of the aqueduct of Valens crossing from one to another, and the swelling domes and gold-tipped minarets of a hundred imperial mosques crowning their summits. And there too was Seraglio Point, a spot of enchanting loveliness, forming a tiny cape as it projects towards the opposite continent and separates the bay from the Sea of Marmora ”

“ ROAD NEAR CASTELLAMARE To the healthy and energetic the most delightful excursion that Castellamare can offer is the ascent to the summit of Monte Sant’ Angelo, that monarch of the Bay of Naples, whose lofty crest gleams with snowy streaks until the spring be well advanced. The lazy or the feeble can make use of one of the poor oppressed donkeys, but it is better to engage its ragged master, who without his four-footed drudge to whack and kick is a harmless enough being, to act as guide over the steep ill-defined pathway that leads ever upwards. ”

“ Truly great, therefore, is the debt that should be acknowledged to Stefano, because he who walks in darkness and gives heart to others, by showing them the way, brings it about that its difficult steps are made easy, so that with lapse of time men leave the false road and attain to the desired goal. At Perugia, too, in the Church of S. Domenico, he began in fresco the Chapel of S. Caterina, which remained unfinished. ”

“ He drank the tea, and in another hour walked into the saloon, to all outward appearance his own old self again.
“Glad indeed to see you, sir,” cried Barclay.
“And so we all are,” said Archie the mate. “You feel better?”
“Oh yes. Presently I will sing and play to you as usual.”
“What have you done, mate?”
“Oh, I’ve taken in the jib, and just clewed up, you know. Perhaps, though, our imprisonment in this terrible sea will not be for many weeks.”
Antonio smiled somewhat sadly, but replied, “Mate, we are not going to despair, come what may. Despair never did any good.” ”

“ And now, Hall, and you, Reginald,” he added, “the ladies at the palace will, I fear, be in great terror. It is our duty to go to them. Our presence may help to cheer them up.”
Daylight was beginning to dawn, though from rolling clouds of smoke in the far east the sun could only be seen like a red-hot iron shot. It was evident enough to our heroes when they had climbed the highest intervening hill, that the island from which the Armada had come was far more severely stricken than this Isle of Flowers was. ”

“ Years flew by, summers passed and winters passed, but smoke was hardly ever seen to hover over the Towers. Then one day the old steward came down to the village all a-quiver with excitement. He wanted tradesmen of all kinds to come forthwith to the mansion house. Lady Alwyn and young Claude—now grown a great lad, the steward felt sure of this—were to return in less than a month.
Smoke enough now began to curl high over turret and tree; even the rooks seemed to feel the importance of the coming occasion, and positively crowed themselves hoarse. ”

“ Then, hand in hand as if they were boys once more, they turned their backs to the coast, and went away towards the mountains.
“Archie,” said Kenneth, “there is gold to be got among these hills, but not by digging.”
“You are right.”
“Let us work for our fortune like steady, brave men. It may come, or it may not. At all events, we will be better working. And we will try to forget the past and build no more castles in the air.”
“Agreed,” said Archie; “let us work.”
At Victoria these two brave young men changed the few nuggets they had found for coin. ”

“ From Taranto to Naples I can recall none save Pompeii. It is, doubtless, an unattainable ideal to bring Castellammare to the state of that sweet-smelling habitation of the dead; though it would be unwise to prophesy what the volcano may not yet achieve on the scene of his old conquests. There 231 are so many things lost and forgotten upon this coast. I see that Schulz, whose great work still remains by far the best guide through the south of Italy, describes vast catacombs in the hillside at Castellammare. ”

“ Antonio himself seemed exceedingly well pleased at the friendliness exhibited to him by this queer pussy, and did not hesitate to tell Barclay so.
“And now, dearie,” said the little man, with a glance upwards at the windmill, “spring is coming, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir, spring is nearly here; and oh, I do love the sweet spring-time, when the sun shines warm and soft every day, sir; when the grass grows green in the fields; when the leaves and buds are on the trees; when birds are building and singing so sweetly on the trees and hedges, and the larks—oh look, sir, yonder is one up there! ”

“ The majority of the people of Stavoren were well-to-do, and as their wealth increased they became luxurious and dissipated, each striving to outdo the others in the magnificence of their homes and the extravagance of their hospitality. ”

“ By evening I saw great grey clouds lying in the hollows before me. It was smoke. I was nearing Glasgow, and in two hours more I was walking along the Broomielaw.
“I had never seen so many people before in my life, but hardly anybody looked at the shepherd lad in Highland garb. I determined they should, though. I put my flute together, and standing near the bridge, commenced to play ‘The Flowers of the Forest.’
“Was it the singular plaintiveness of this beautiful air, I wonder, or was it that my thoughts were away back again in the glen I had left, and with those I loved so dearly? ”

“ Ten thousand men could not penetrate into the land of gold and diamonds.”
“But,” said Archie, “two or three might.”
“Ah!” cried Morosco, “there you have it, young sir; one man may do more in Africa than an army. It has ever been thus; look at your Livingstone for example.”
Then Kenneth took to thinking, and for days said no more on the subject even to Archie. But one evening, he asked him to come for a row among the coral islands. It was nearly sundown. There was not a ripple on the water, only a yellow haze all along the horizon, with the broad sun sinking red through it. ”

“ Antonio was not half so weird-looking now that he had discharged that uncanny eye.
“In love,” cried Barclay; “I would not sweetheart one of those girls for all the gold in Queensland.”
“Oh,” continued Antonio, “that isn’t the kind of love they love you with. They want to broil and eat you, dearie.”
. . . . . .
Months went on; the sponges collected on the sea beach were tied to sticks in the sand at low water, in thousands. When the tide was high it washed them; when low, the sun bleached them; and so all the innumerable animalculæ that dwelt in their cells soon decayed and washed away. ”

“ The opposing factions were assiduously engaged in pillage and reprisals, the one doing all that lay in its power to hinder the prosperity of the other, and as the important factor in the prosperity of a country is its commerce, and as Pescara possessed many industries and great wealth, the people of Castellammare had long sought with much astuteness and all manner of allurements to draw the merchants away from the rival town. ”