104 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



eyes a little wider, and shows his white teeth through 

 his beard. What next will they say, these incredible 

 Forestieri 1 Not real ! and yet how many honest 

 fellows make their living by it, and but for this little 

 stealthy archway and the scene to which it opens, 

 could no more afford to marry and multiply than our 

 guide himself could manage to live without Tiberio ! 

 But though Feliciello smiles, he does not condescend 

 to any other notice of so ridiculous an exclamation. 

 The Blue Grotto is part of his manor, and of the 

 estate of Antoniiio of Sorrento, and many another ; 

 and as for the nonsense uttered by the Signori 

 Inglesi in their bad Italian, who pays any attention ? 

 And now, as the swell has fallen a little, let us pluck 

 up a heart and make our way round the island in 

 Luigi's big boat, Avith four stout rowers, who take 

 their business very quietly. These four lithe brown 

 figures, who stand to their oars, propelling their boat, 

 not in our English fashion, seated, but standing, and 

 with their faces to the prow, in their red Phrygian 

 caps and scanty white under-garment, bear a character 

 more fitting the place than any decorous British boat's 

 crew, though Luigi himself, in the blue coat he wears 

 on Sundays, looks twenty times more like a Scotch 

 elder than a Neapolitan marinaro. Past the softened 

 cliffs, which form a bulwark to the high table-land on 

 which Anacapri lies unseen among the clouds ; past the 

 little tower which commands the one accessible point on 

 this iron-bound coast, the little rocky landing-place at 



