LIFE IN AX ISLAND. 93 



donkey as far as the village piazza. Such a division 

 of labour is counted natural at all events, in Capri ; 

 but in compensation to the sex, it is to a deified 

 woman that he addresses his prayers. It would be 

 curious to observe whether the rule holds among 

 the more devoted votaries of Mary throughout the 

 world. 



But there are better things to be seen on this 

 Tiberian height. On the highest point in front of 

 the chapel is a grassy platform, upon which the meek 

 hermit who has charge of the little sanctuary places 

 chairs for the accommodation of the Signori and the 

 good of the eleemosina box which hangs against the 

 wall. Xiccolo is not by any means an austere or 

 alarming anchorite, but a youth of two or three and 

 twenty, a pensive soul, half frightened at his own 

 temerity in dwelling up here among the winds ; who 

 cultivates meekly a little corn and a few vegetables 

 in the ruined chambers of Tiberius, and gets his 

 living painfully, like all the other peasants of Capri, 

 from the produce of his little shelves and boxes of 

 soil. This modest youth, who might almost, with a 

 little idealisation and a fillet in his hair, stand for one 

 of the deacon-angels in an old picture, wisely says 

 nothing about the landscape, but leaves it to his 

 visitors to enjoy for themselves. It is, with enlarge- 

 ments and appendices, the same beautiful vision 

 which we have already described. All the curving 

 lip of the bay is traced in sunshine with a continuous 



