LIFE IN AX ISLAND. 85 



Feliciello ; but that softer feeling was lost in a sense 

 of indignation to find the ugliest woman in the island, 

 a creature so uninteresting that we never even learned 

 her name, in lawful possession of our handsome guide. 

 Alas ! he was not perfect, though he was charming. 

 It was an interested marriage, our host informed us 

 gravely ; not that the poor woman possessed any- 

 thing but then look at her arms ! none of all her 

 compeers could carry such weights ; and Felice had 

 done very well for himself. His other property was 

 equally serviceable. A little white pony, the sturdiest 

 of his race, who came from Ischia, and had doubtless 

 spent his baby days in that cognate island, as he 

 spends his maturity in Capri, going up -stairs and 

 down-stairs, like the goose in the fable, was the pride 

 of Feliciello's heart. Another of his steeds, whether 

 by means of its saddle, or of something characteristic 

 and individual in its physiognomy, bore the most 

 curious resemblance to a dromedary which was ever 

 seen out of the Zoological Gardens. The third was 

 a fiery courser, which, when as occurred at rare but 

 precious intervals a level bit of road of twenty paces 

 or so was to be met with, could be stimulated out 

 of his ordinary composed pace into a short and hard 

 trot. It was to this spirited and majestic animal that 

 Feliciello preferred his favourites, himself walking 

 by the stirrup. Whether he helped himself up the 

 steep bits of the road by means of the tail, I cannot 

 affirm, but his assistant, Pascorello, certainly did ; and 



