, for it
makes impenetrable hedges, and its coarse pulpy leaves when pounded up
afford good provender for their goats and donkeys. The fruits of the
prickly pear, those quaint crimson or yellow knobs attached to the edges
of the leaves, are likewise gathered and eaten by the people, or else
cleaned of their protecting layers of spiny hairs and despatched in
baskets to Naples, where the cactus-fruit forms an important item of the
popular fare. The fruit itself has a lovely colour and a fragrant scent,
which give promise of a better flavour than it actually possesses, for it
is hopelessly insipid to the taste, although the Neapolitans declare that
the pulp, when mashed up into patties and iced, is very palatable.

A long up-hill ramble over rough paths leads eventually to the Villa of
Jupiter, perched on the Salto--the _Saltus Caprearum_, the "Wild Goats'
Leap," of the ancients. There is little of interest to be seen in the
existing portions of Tiberius' chief villa, for the building has been
despoiled centuries ago of its rich marbles, its slabs of _giallo_ and
_verde antico_, its pillars of red porphyry and _serpentino_, some
fragments of which may be found imbedded in the pavement of the
mosque-like little Duomo of Capri. But it is evident from the immense
extent of its substructures, now used for humble enough purposes, that the
Villa Jovis must have been a palace of remarkable size. A hermit who
offers sour wine, a fat middle-aged woman, a figure of fun in her gay
be-ribboned dress who begins languidly dancing a _tarantella_, and a
vulgar pestilent guide who produces a spy-glass usually haunt these
caverns on the look-out for any chance visitor. Buy them off, O stranger!
with _soldi_, is our advice, for you cannot otherwise escape their
importunities, and then mounting to the highest point, peer down into the
clear depths of the water nearly a thousand feet below. For it was here,
if we can credit serious Roman historians, that the Imperial tyrant, half
crazy with terror and ever thirsting for human blood, was wont to hurl the
objects of his hate into the sea; "from this eminence," Suetonius gravely
tells us, "after the application of long drawn-out and exquisite tortures,
Tiberius used to order his executioners to fling their victims before his
eyes into the water, where boats full of mariners, stationed below, were
waiting in readiness to beat the bruised bodies with oars, in case any
spark of life might yet be left