THE ISLE OF CAPRI 



An Imperial Residence and Probable Wireless Station of 



Ancient Rome 



By John A. Kingman 



IN NO part of Italy is the natural 

 scenery more astonishing and de- 

 lightful than in the Bay of Naples. 

 The Italian travel literature of the last 

 hundred and fifty years is rich in at- 

 tempts to describe the picturesqueness of 

 the district ; but in the old days the tour 

 usually ended at Naples, and by that 

 time the fatigued diarists had pretty 

 much run out of adjectives. Symonds, 

 one of the best of the English writers on 

 Italy, has done well by the locality; our 

 Fenimore Cooper has written some 

 agreeable bits about it, and the half -for- 

 gotten American poet, Willis, epitomized 

 all descriptions when he called it a col- 

 lection of beauties which seems more like 

 a miracle than an accident of nature. 



Owing to the striking contrasts caused 

 by the meeting of mountains, sea, and 

 mountain islands, much of the charm of 

 the bay can be caught by the camera. 

 The painter has little advantage over a 

 machine which reproduces the sculptured 

 forms exactly, whereas the colors and 

 curious quality of the atmosphere are be- 

 yond both. 



Many lovers of Italy feel that a coun- 

 try like Tuscany, with its softer color- 

 ings and gentler contours, is more rest- 

 ful arid somehow more wholesome to 

 live with, and that the Neapolitan 

 scenery is too much like theater cur- 

 tains come to life. Nevertheless, every 

 person who arrives at Naples under fair 

 skies and beholds this littoral for the 

 first time cannot help being affected by 

 its loveliness. 



A SIREN LAND CHARGED WTTTI CLASSICAL 

 MEMORIES 



Many of the visitors feel something 

 deeper than admiration ; for them all of 

 the coast scenery from Miseno to Sa- 

 lerno has a strange and lasting fascina- 



tion. Then there are the siren wor- 

 shipers who have heard the mystic song 

 and are content to let body and soul rest 

 here forever ; and to such willing victims 

 of the picturesque, Naples is not a noisy, 

 nerve-racking modern city, full of beg- 

 gars and rogues and fleas ; it is the old 

 "new city" — Neapolis. 



In the Bay of Naples the very at- 

 mosphere, to such Neapolitan specialists, 

 seems more bland and limpid than else- 

 where on the peninsula, lending to the 

 distances a more magical and haunting 

 charm ; the curving shore is picked out 

 and decorated with countless beauties, 

 and high mountains descend abruptly 

 to a tideless sea streaked with color, 

 in which are set ethereal lilac-tinted 

 islands. 



This southern Siren Land, in addition 

 to its gorgeous aspect, is so charged 

 through and through with classical mem- 

 ories that it has much of the glory of 

 Greece and the grandeur of Rome. 

 From this rare vintage is expressed a 

 heady beverage esteemed by siren wor- 

 shipers and lotus-eaters, numbers of 

 whom have lived hereabout for genera- 

 tions and who have found a particularly 

 choice place of residence on one of its 

 fairest spots — the mountain island of 

 Capri, the Capreae of the great em- 

 perors, Augustus and Tiberius. 



AN ESTHETIC WONDER OE THE WORLD 



Viewed from Naples. Capri is a con- 

 spicuous object in the seascape twenty 

 miles to the south. Its profile resembles 

 the storm-tossed waves, or a sphinx, or 

 a vast heap of clouds brooding at sea, or 

 a sarcophagus, or a crocodile — depend- 

 ing on whether your viewpoint is that of 

 Lord Byron, or Richter, or Willis, 

 or Gregorovius. or Colonel Mackowen. 

 Thus is seen the futility of description. 



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