of Gaeta stretched out
before me.

That night I slept in a little Italian inn by the verge of the quiet
sea. There also, as at Terracina, ancient and doddering men acted as
chambermaids. They wandered in with mattresses and sheets, until I
wondered where the women were and what they did. And outside was a
fountain where Formia drew water, as it seemed, all the night,
chattering of heaven knows what. For Formia is a busy and beautiful
little town. On the north side it is sheltered by a high range of hills;
on the lower slopes are grown oranges and lemons and pomegranates;
there also are olive-groves and vineyards. I stayed a day among the
Formian folk, and then Naples, which one can almost see from the
terraces above the town, drew me south. At the Villa Caposele one can
see Gaeta itself to the south and Ischia in the blue sea, Casamicciola
facing one. I remember how the Italian nature came out when I arranged
to go to the station to take the train for Sparanise. I had but little
baggage and it was put in a truck for me by the landlord of the Hotel
dei Fiori. I walked into the station and the boy who pulled the truck
followed. As he came up the little slope to the station I saw that eight
or ten others were pretending to help him, and I knew that they would
inevitably want some pence for assisting. In a few moments I was
surrounded by the eager crowd. "Signor, I pushed behind!" "And, signor,
so did I!" "And oh, but it was hard work, signor!" And everyone who
could have had a finger on the little truck wanted his finger paid. They
were insistent, clamorous, and at the same time curious to see how the
stray foreigner would take it. I perceived gleams of humour in them, and
to their disappointment, yet to their immense delight, for the Italian
admires a degree of shrewdness, I stared them all over and burst into
laughter. They saw at once that the game was up, and they shrieked with
laughter at their own discomfiture. I gave the boy with the truck his
lira, dropped an extra ten centesimi into his palm, and said suddenly,
"Scappate via!" They gave one shout more of laughter and ran down the
hill. And as for me, I got into the train and went to old quarters of
mine in Naples. But I was glad to have been off the beaten track for
once.

A SNOW-GRIND

Perhaps it is not wholly an advantage that most Alpine literature has
been done by experts in climbing, by men who have climbed till climbing
is second nature and they