Pescara

“ PESCARA, a river of Italy, formed by the confluence of the Gizio and Aterno, and flowing into the Adriatic at the small town of Pescara. This town occupies the site of the ancient Aternum, the terminus of the Via Claudia Valeria, and up to 1867 a fortress of some importance. The railway from Sulmona follows the Pescara valley and joins the coast line to Brindisi at Pescara. ”

“ When seven consecutive sneezes of Mastro Peppe De Sieri, called La Brevetta, resounded loudly in the square of the City Hall, all the inhabitants of Pescara would seat themselves around their tables and begin their meal. Soon after the bell would strike twelve, and simultaneously, the people would become very hilarious. ”

“ Nothing is omitted that could add to the veracity, the inevitable collapse, of this almost senile Don Juan; while the psychology of the ending is an accomplishment of arresting power and fitness. There is in The Duchess of Amalfi a vivid presentation of Pescara itself, the houses and Violetta’s room scented with cyprus-powder, the square with the cobblers working and eating figs, a caged blackbird whistling the Hymn of Garibaldi, the Casino, immersed in shadow, its tables sprinkled with water. ”

“ The army of Pescara was the sole imperial force now in Italy, and its defeat would have been the immediate recovery of the Milanese territory. But Francis was beguiled into the delay of besieging Pavia, in which Pescara had left a strong garrison under Antonio da Leyva. Pavia was a well-fortified city, situated on the deep and rapid Ticino, in a peculiarly strong position, and had repeatedly defied armies for a long time together, particularly those of the Lombards and of Charlemagne. ”

“ It was only by the accident of his birth at Naples that Pescara was an Italian. He considered himself a Spaniard, spoke Spanish at all times, even to his wife, and was always surrounded by Spanish soldiers and officers. His opinion of the Italians as fighting men was unfavourable and was openly expressed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Through all the country of Pescara, San Silvestro, Fontanella, San Rocco, even as far as Spoltore, and through all the farms of Vallelonga beyond Allento and particularly in the little boroughs where sailors meet near the mouth of the river,—through all this country, where the houses are built of clay and of reeds, and the fire material is supplied by drift wood from the sea, for many years a Catholic rhapsodist with a barbarian and piratical name, who is as blind as the ancient Homer, has been famous. ”

“ Her father and her uncle, Prospero Colonna, were also among the military who led Italian troops. In the terrible battle of Ravenna (which was fought on the Easter Sunday, April 11, of 1512) , Pescara was wounded, taken prisoner, and carried to the fortress of Porta Gobbia. A messenger was sent to Ischia, where Vittoria lived between her books and the [297] orange groves; and the twentieth-century cynic of 1907 will smile at the form in which she expressed her sorrow,—that of a poem of some forty stanzas, which began:—
“Eccelso Mio Signor! ”

“ The cases were green, fastened with iron bands and three locks. The Mayor had been obliged to pay seven thousand ducats to bury the cases and save the country. Another story went about that the Government paid the Mayor five ducats for every dead person because the population was too large, and it was the poor who must die. The Mayor was now making out a list of those selected. Ha! He would get rich, this great signore! And so the excitement grew. The peasants would not buy anything in the market of Pescara; the figs were left to rot on the trees ”

“ THE WESTERN SHORE GOING westward from Palermo, the railroad cuts inland behind Monte Pellegrino, crossing the Conca d’Oro past many villas, and does not again touch the coast until, ten miles away, it reaches Sferracavallo, whose main street is so atrociously paved as to give the town its merited name—Unshoe-a-Horse. The line then skirts the shore for some distance, and the early morning scenes on the water to the right are more than lovely. Fishermen flit about in their white-winged boats or toil at launching the heavy craft. The waterfront of every village is a hive of industry. ”

“ Elmo, and dined on macaroni in a trattoria, where the Italian I had learned in Tuscany was of little more use to me than Greek.
The bay surprised me most. It is a collection of beauties, which seems more a miracle than an accident of nature. It is a deep crescent of sixteen miles across, and a little more in length, between the points of which lies a chain of low mountains, called the island of Capri, looking, from the shore, like a vast heap of clouds brooding at sea. In the bosom of the crescent lies Naples. ”

“ Charming too are the walks by the sea-shore—now sadly disfigured by the Cantiere Armstrong, with its smoke and ugliness looking like a dirty smudge upon the delicate landscape of the Bay—for here again we find endless traces of the Imperial age. There can be no [pg 303] more fascinating employment than to wander along the beach after one of the heavy winter storms that so often vex the quiet of the Bay of Naples, and to search for fragments of precious marbles that have been spied by the waves amidst the sunken foundations of Roman villas, and thence idly flung upon the shore. ”

“ At present the Riviera—as the coast-line from Genoa to Pisa is called—is little travelled. The steamers passing to Leghorn by the cord of the arch, take away nearly all the tourists, so that Spezia, even as a bathing-place, is little resorted to by strangers. There are none, not one, of the ordinary signs of the watering-place about it. Neither donkeys to hire, nor subscription concerts; not a pony phaeton, a pianist, nor any species of human phenomenon to torment you ”

“ Immense masses of smoke ascend from his jaws, and then sink over the whole mountain district to the left, around the bay of Naples, the heights of Terra del Greco, Sorrento, and Castel-a-Mare. I have a pleasant home on the Riviera di Chiaja. In front of it, between the quay and the sea, extends the beautiful promenade, Villa Reale; beyond this is the bay,—the grand, celebrated bay,—surrounded by the shores of Pozzuoli and Pompeii. The former is crowned with villas and parks. On the left is throned Vesuvius. The sea is full of joyous life, and the waves gleam in the sun. ”

“ Slowly, slowly we turn round: and as the ship turns, our hearts turn. Palermo fades from our consciousness: the Naples boat, the disembarking crowds, the rattling carriages to the land—the great City of Trieste—all fades from our heart. We see only the open gap of the harbour entrance, and the level, pale-grey void of the sea beyond. ”

“ The beautiful bay which lies between Porto Venere and Lerici behind the line of islands, that are really fortifications, is, in spite of every violation, a spectacle of extraordinary beauty, and in the old days—not so long ago, after all—when the woods came down to the sea, and Spezia was a tiny village, less even than Lerici is to-day, it must have been one of the loveliest and quietest places in the world. ”

“ Nervi itself, that surprising place where beauty is all gathered into a nosegay of sea and seashore, will not keep you long, for the sun is high, and the road is calling, and the heat to come; moreover, the beautiful headland of Portofino seems to shut out all Italy from your sight. Once there, you tell yourself, what may not be seen, the Carrara hills, Spezia perhaps, even Pisa maybe, miles and miles away, where Arno winds through the marshes behind the Pineta to the sea. ”

“ I was so charmed with it that I stood for a long time on deck without thinking of landing.
A chain of beautiful hills and huge masses of rock in the background surround the harbour and town. Every where the greatest fertility reigns, and all things are in the most thriving and flourishing condition. In the direction of Palermo the boundless ocean is visible.
I now bade farewell to the splendid steamer Hercules, because I did not intend to proceed direct to Naples, but to make a detour by way of Palermo. ”

“ A sweet and peaceful scene in the foreground, it must have been, and a whole horizon of enchantment beyond the sunny peninsula over which it lorded: the Mediterranean, with poetic Capri, and Ischia, and all the classic shore from Cape Misenum, Baiae, and Naples, round to Vesuvius; all the sparkling Bay of Naples; and on the other side the Bay of Salerno, covered with the fleets of the commerce of Amalfi, then a republican city of fifty thousand people ”

“ To the south of the bay stands Vesuvius, steaming and smoking, throwing up its vapours to the sky, by night a bright red glare; at the crown of the bay stands the far-famed Naples, with its many-tinted houses piled one above another up the hill that skirts the bay, crowned by the colossal castle of Elmo. The curve of the bay is broken in the centre by a small mole, on which stands the ruined-looking castle Dell Ova and the Palace Royal, and further north, on the rising ground stands modern Naples, laid out with fine hotels, villas, and gardens. ”

“ Anthony, and the ship under little government. Late in the afternoon of the 20th we succeeded in landing at a wretched little place in Tuscany, belonging to the King of Naples, in what was called “i Presidj di Toscana.” Its name was Santo Stefano, a small village, with a castle and an insignificant garrison to keep off ships coming from the Levant. Next day, the 21st, we went on shore, but could find no house where we could get a bed. We were afraid to sleep on board, because we heard that the Moorish pirates sometimes came here and cut vessels out of the harbour. ”

“ And the dashing tunny-fisheries off-shore—the brilliant sunshine glinting on the flapping white sails—the water boiling about the frantic monsters as they plunge and struggle to escape the stabbing gaffs of their captors; the water red and green and black at last, and the long line of huge, gleaming bodies—like titanic Spanish mackerel varnished an opalescent black—strewn upon the white and sparkling beach!
What more could man wish to see?
Monte Pellegrino looms square and massive at one tip of Palermo’s crescent harbor. ”

“ Once Pisa was on the sea, possessed a fine harbor, and in rich commerce was a rival of Genoa and Venice. She was a proud, eager, assertive city; of such worth that she was deemed a rich prize, and was captured by the Romans a few centuries B.C. Now the sea has left her and, with that, her commerce and importance in the world of trade. She is to-day so poor that there is nothing to tempt travellers to come to her save a magnificent climate and this wonderful group of buildings. The inhabitants are few and humble, her streets are grass-grown. Everything has stopped in poor old Pisa. ”

“ Palermo, June 28th.—The curve of “The Golden Shell,” which bends to the east of Palermo, is a luxuriant plain of ten miles in length, terminated by a bluff which forms a headland corner of the bay. A broad neck of land between this bay and another indenting the coast less deeply on the other side, is occupied by a cluster of summer palaces belonging to several of the richer princes of Sicily. The breeze, whenever there is one on land or sea, sweeps freshly across this ridge, and a more desirable residence for combined coolness and beauty could scarce be imagined. ”

“ And yet the charm of Naples is in its environs, and one who should spend a month or two here, might make constant excursions to points along the bay, which are attractive alike by their natural beauty and their historical interest. He may follow the shore from Ischia clear around to Capri, and enjoy a succession of beautiful points, as the shore-line curves in and out, now running into some sheltered nook, where the olive groves grow thick in the southern sun, and then coming to a headland that juts out into the sea. ”

“ A long line of carriages was drawn up along the Marina, and many of the old Sicilian aristocracy were mingling with the crowd.
Palermo is like a night blossom which opens only with the first breath of evening. By day, it is parched and sleepy and stupid; by night, it is alive and joyous—the place itself becomes an al fresco paradise. It is night which draws the sweetness from the flowers. The air is heavy with the faint perfume of hyacinths and wild violets, and a breeze stirring among the orange groves wafts a delicious aromatic odor across the bay. ”

“ The northerly position of Palermo produces a very strange effect: as the city and shore come between the sun and the harbour, its reflection is never observed on the waves. On this account, though this was one of the brightest days, I found the sea of a deep blue colour, solemn, and oppressive; whereas, at Naples, from the time of noon it gets brighter and brighter, and glitters with more airy lightness and to a greater distance. ”

“ The sun was just setting over the beautiful Bay of Naples,—with its enchanted islands, its jewelled city, its flowery villages, all bedecked and bedropped with strange shiftings and flushes of prismatic light and shade, as if they belonged to some fairy-land of perpetual festivity and singing,—when Father Francesco stopped in his toilsome ascent up the mountain, and, seating himself on ropy ridges of black lava, looked down on the peaceful landscape. ”