on, said to
be peculiar to the Parthenopean shores, may be observed. From out the
purple threatening masses that fill the heavens there suddenly falls a
shaft of rosy light, as though directed by some vast celestial lens fixed
aloft in the sky, upon a small portion of the opposite shore. The plateau
of Sorrento with its many white hamlets first becomes illuminated; then
the light rapidly passes towards Vesuvius, which is instantly revealed
with marvellous clearness, whilst Sorrento returns to its former dark
brooding shadows. For some moments we watch the circlet of towns that
fringe the base of the burning mountain and Camaldoli erect on its wooded
height, and then our gaze is diverted towards Naples, so clearly revealed
that one can almost fancy it possible to detect the carriages driving
along the white line of the Caracciolo. From the city this weird
fairy-like light glides swiftly towards the headland of Posilipo and the
great sombre mass of Ischia, and then finally seems to vanish altogether
in the leaden-hued expanse of the watery horizon. Storm, rain, wind, hail
and thunder will certainly follow the appearance of this fantastic
rose-coloured glow, and the visitor to Capri may in consequence be
compelled to remain willy-nilly upon the island until such time as
communication with Naples shall be once more restored, for rough weather
on Capri means complete isolation from the mainland and the outside world.
A spell of four or five days without a letter or a newspaper may in
certain cases be restful and even beneficial, but it can also be highly
inconvenient.

* * * * * *

Comparatively few persons are aware that in the history of Capri is to be
found a page, not a particularly glorious one perhaps, of the annals of
our own nation. In the spring of 1806, the year after Trafalgar, whilst
our fleet was blockading Naples on behalf of its worthless monarch, King
Ferdinand, then skulking in cowardly ease at Palermo, Admiral Sir Sidney
Smith, the hero of Acre, managed to capture the island after a sharp
struggle with the French troops then holding it in the name of Joachim
Murat, King of Naples and brother-in-law of the great Napoleon. Sir Hudson
(then Colonel) Lowe--afterwards famous as the Governor of St Helena during
Buonaparte's captivity--was now put in command of the newly conquered
island with some 1500 English and Maltese troops at his disposal. Lowe and
his second in command, M