ck." On the
other hand, we read, "J. Cruttard, homme de lettres, a passe quinze
jours ici, et n'a eu que des felicites du patron de cet hotel et de sa
famille." Cheerful man of letters! His good-natured record will keep
green a name little known to literature. Who are G. Bradshaw, Duke
of New York, and Signori Jones and Andrews, Hereditary Princes of the
United States? Their patrician names followed the titles of several
English nobles in the register. But that which most interested the
ladies in this record was the warning of a terrified British matron
against any visit to the Blue Grotto except in the very calmest
weather. The British matron penned her caution after an all but fatal
experience. The ladies read it aloud to us, and announced that for
themselves they would be contented with pictures of the Blue Grotto
and our account of its marvels.

On the beach below the hotel lay the small boats of the guides to the
Blue Grotto, and we descended to take one of them. The fixed rate is a
franc for each person. The boatmen wanted five francs for each of us.
We explained that although not indigenous to Capri, or even Italy,
we were not of the succulent growth of travellers, and would not be
eaten. We retired to our vantage ground on the heights. The guides
called us to the beach again. They would take us for three francs
apiece, or say six francs for both of us. We withdrew furious to the
heights again, where we found honest Antonino, who did us the pleasure
to yell to his fellow-scoundrels on the beach, "You had better take
these signori for a just price. They are going to the syndic to
complain of you." At which there arose a lamentable outcry among the
boatmen, and they called with one voice for us to come down and go
for a franc apiece. This fable teaches that common-carriers are rogues
everywhere; but that whereas we are helpless in their hands at home,
we may bully them into rectitude in Italy, where they are afraid of
the law.

We had scarcely left the landing of the hotel in the boat of the
patriarch--for I need hardly say he was first and most rapacious of
the plundering crew--when we found ourselves in very turbulent waters,
in the face of mighty bluffs, rising inaccessible from the sea. Here
and there, where their swarthy fronts were softened with a little
verdure, goat-paths wound up and down among the rocks; and midway
between the hotel and the grotto, in a sort of sheltered nook, we saw
the Roman masonry