rched on a rocky
pinnacle and looking like some fantastic creation of Gustave Dore's brush;
the broad ribband of road leads across the steep northern flank of Monte
Solaro, until it ends at Ana-Capri with its white houses nestling round a
domed church. It is an easy ascent, taking no great space of time, yet
strange to relate, well within living memory the only approach to this
hill-set village was by means of the interminable stone staircase with
some five hundred steps that connected it with the Marina Grande below. A
charming writer on Neapolitan life and character thus shrewdly sums up the
general opinion concerning this altered aspect of conditions with regard
to Ana-Capri, now brought at last into close touch with modern
civilization and its accruing benefits:

"Before the culminating point is reached, the road crosses the old
staircase, which has unfortunately been almost completely destroyed by the
huge masses of rock dislodged from the cliff above by the workmen. It
makes one sad to look at it, and almost regret that the new road ever was
constructed. Were every invective that has been vented on those same steps
turned into a paving-stone, there would be more than sufficient to pave
the streets of Naples anew; were every drop of sweat that has fallen upon
them collected, there would be enough water to flood them. And yet now
that this dreadful staircase has been superseded by a good macadamised
road, every one seems to regret the change. Says the heavily laden
_contadina_: 'The old way was the shortest;' says the artist: 'It was
infinitely more picturesque; that new parapet wall is a dreadful
eye-sore;' says the archaeologist: 'It had the merit of antiquity; it is
not everywhere that one can tread in the footprints of a hundred
generations.' Even those whose every step in the olden time was
accompanied by a malediction, can remember how good a glass of very
inferior wine tasted on reaching Ana-Capri."(11)

But whether Ana-Capri has or has not been really benefited by the Italian
Government's finely engineered road, there can be no doubt that the
primitive charm of the island, which in by-gone days constituted one of
its chief attractions, has greatly declined with the wholesale
introduction of modern conventions and improvements. With the sudden
influx of wealthy strangers, Anglo-Saxon, German, French and Russian, it
is not surprising to learn that the islanders have become somewhat
demoralized under the chang