LIFE IN AN ISLAND. 109 



streets, where there is scarcely room for two people 

 to stand abreast, have something of the same Eastern 

 character. But Italy re-appears in the little piazza, 

 the universal village centre, where stands the church 

 and the Guardia Rationale, and the headquarters of 

 the little municipality ; and where the entire popula- 

 tion unite in directing the eyes of the strangers to a 

 tablet in the wall, where one reads in English words 

 the record of an English soldier's warfare and death 

 Major Hamel, if our memory serves, who had charge 

 of the island and its defences the last time war 

 came Capri-wards. The brave Englishman died for 

 the island as used to be our English custom. One 

 wonders what had he to do shedding honest blood 

 for the wondering peasants, who are a great deal too 

 much absorbed, even in this age of enlightenment, 

 in their own primitive business, to care much, now 

 that massacre and cruelty are no longer in fashion on 

 one side or the other, what big kingdom takes little 

 Capri in tow ! But, after all, a man with his hands in 

 his pockets looking on at everything, is scarcely so dig- 

 nified a national ideal as is even this nameless Major, 

 dying like a hero in testimony of a certain wild idea, of 

 which England was possessed once upon a time, that 

 in the face of all big bullies and conquerors it was she 

 against the world. Other ideas have dawned upon the 

 present generation ; but still let us be excused if we love 

 our island all the better, because forthe sake of its scarce- 

 regarded freedom an English soldier shed his blood. 



