t, owing to the fact that everybody is captain
of the expedition, and to the Sorrento infirmity that no one is able to
make up his mind about anything. It is one o'clock when we reach a high
transverse ridge, and find the headlands of the peninsula rising before
us, grim hills of limestone, one of them with the ruins of a convent on
top, and no road apparent thither, and Capri ahead of us in the sea, the
only bit of land that catches any light; for as we have journeyed the
sky has thickened, the clouds of the sirocco have come up from the
south; there has been first a mist, and then a fine rain; the ruins
on the peak of Santa Costanza are now hid in mist. We halt for
consultation. Shall we go on and brave a wetting, or ignominiously
retreat? There are many opinions, but few decided ones. The drivers
declare that it will be a bad time. One gentleman, with an air of
decision, suggests that it is best to go on, or go back, if we do not
stand here and wait. The deaf lady, from near Dublin, being appealed to,
says that, perhaps, if it is more prudent, we had better go back if
it is going to rain. It does rain. Waterproofs are put on, umbrellas
spread, backs turned to the wind; and we look like a group of explorers
under adverse circumstances, "silent on a peak in Darien," the donkeys
especially downcast and dejected. Finally, as is usual in life, a
compromise prevails. We decide to continue for half an hour longer and
see what the weather is. No sooner have we set forward over the brow of
a hill than it grows lighter on the sea horizon in the southwest, the
ruins on the peak become visible, Capri is in full sunlight. The clouds
lift more and more, and still hanging overhead, but with no more rain,
are like curtains gradually drawn up, opening to us a glorious vista of
sunshine and promise, an illumined, sparkling, illimitable sea, and a
bright foreground of slopes and picturesque rocks. Before the half hour
is up, there is not one of the party who does not claim to have been the
person who insisted upon going forward.

We halt for a moment to look at Capri, that enormous, irregular rock,
raising its huge back out of the sea, its back broken in the middle,
with the little village for a saddle. On the farther summit, above
Anacapri, a precipice of two thousand feet sheer down to the water on
the other side, hangs a light cloud. The east elevation, whence
the playful Tiberius used to amuse his green old age by casting his
priso