Ana-Capri
and Damecuta, whilst the grapes produce the highly prized red and white
Capri vintages, choice wine of which the casual traveller rarely tastes a
good sample, for it is usually doctored and "improved" for purposes of
keeping by the wine-merchants of Naples. Thus the rasping red liquid that
appears on the table of a London restaurant, and the scented
strong-tasting white stuff that is sold in the hotels of the island itself
or of Naples under the name of Capri, have little in common with the pure
unadulterated product of these sunny breezy vineyards. But besides wine
and oil, the island is likewise celebrated for its beautiful and varied
flora, and it is amongst the olive groves and lanes of the western side of
the island that the wild flowers can be found in the greatest profusion.
Amongst the tender green shoots of the young springing corn are set
myriads of brilliant hued anemones, purple, scarlet, and white with a
crimson centre; and even in January can be found in warm sheltered nooks
the pretty mauve wind-flower, one of the earliest of spring blossoms in
Italy. The grassy pathways that intersect the various holdings are gay
with rosy-tipped daisies, white "star-of-Bethlehem," dark purple
grape-hyacinth, and the tiny strong-scented marigold, that seems to bloom
the whole twelve-month round. Amongst the loose stone-work of the walled
lanes, where beryl-backed lizards peep in and out of every crevice, can be
found fragrant violets and the delicate fumitory with its pink waxy bells.
In moist places flourish patches of the wild arum or of the stately great
celandine, the "swallow-wort" of old-fashioned herbalists, who believed
that the swallow made use of the thick yellow juice that runs in the veins
of this plant to anoint the eyes of her fledgelings! And with the
disappearance of the anemones as the season advances, their place is taken
by blood-red poppies, by golden hawkweeds and by masses of tall
magenta-coloured blooms of the wild gladiolus, the "Jacob's Ladder" of our
own English gardens. Strange enough amongst these familiar homely flowers
appear the sub-tropical clumps of prickly pear, and the hedges of aloe
which here and there have thrown up a gigantic spike of blossom eight or
ten feet in height, a triumphal favour of Nature that the plant itself
must pay for by its subsequent death.

From Ana-Capri we ascend to the peak of the lofty Solaro, by no means an
arduous climb from this point, for we have