The Complete Writings-2 [106]
the general openness and freshness, promise a day of enjoyment. There is always a doubt as to who will go; generally a donkey wanting; somebody wishes to join the party at the last moment; there is no end of running up and downstairs, calling from balconies and terraces; some never ready, and some waiting below in the sun; the whole house in a tumult, drivers in a worry, and the sleepy animals now and then joining in the clatter with a vocal performance that is neither a trumpet-call nor a steam-whistle, but an indescribable noise, that begins in agony and abruptly breaks down in despair. It is difficult to get the train in motion. The lady who ordered Succarina has got a strange donkey, and Macaroni has on the wrong saddle. Succarina is a favorite, the kindest, easiest, and surest-footed of beasts,--a diminutive animal, not bigger than a Friesland sheep; old, in fact grizzly with years, and not unlike the aged, wizened little women who are so common here: for beauty in this region dries up; and these handsome Sorrento girls, if they live, and almost everybody does live, have the prospect, in their old age, of becoming mummies, with parchment skins. I have heard of climates that preserve female beauty; this embalms it, only the beauty escapes in the process. As I was saying, Succarina is little, old, and grizzly; but her head is large, and one might be contented to be as wise as she looks.
The party is at length mounted, and clatters away through the narrow streets. Donkey-riding is very good for people who think they cannot walk. It looks very much like riding, to a spectator; and it deceives the person undertaking it into an amount of exercise equal to walking. I have a great admiration for the donkey character. There never was such patience under wrong treatment, such return of devotion for injury. Their obstinacy, which is so much talked about, is only an exercise of the right of private judgment, and an intelligent exercise of it, no doubt, if we could take the donkey point of view, as so many of us are accused of doing in other things. I am certain of one thing: in any large excursion party there will be more obstinate people than obstinate donkeys; and yet the poor brutes get all the thwacks and thumps. We are bound to-day for the Punta della Campanella, the extreme point of the promontory, and ten miles away. The path lies up the steps from the new Massa carriage-road, now on the backbone of the ridge, and now in the recesses of the broken country. What an animated picture is the donkeycade, as it mounts the steeps, winding along the zigzags! Hear the little bridlebells jingling, the drivers groaning their " a-e-ugh, a-e-ugh," the riders making a merry din of laughter, and firing off a fusillade of ejaculations of delight and wonder.
The road is between high walls; round the sweep of curved terraces which rise above and below us, bearing the glistening olive; through glens and gullies; over and under arches, vine-grown,--how little we make use of the arch at home!--round sunny dells where orange orchards gleam; past shrines, little chapels perched on rocks, rude villas commanding most extensive sweeps of sea and shore. The almond trees are in full bloom, every twig a thickly-set spike of the pink and white blossoms; daisies and dandelions are out; the purple crocuses sprinkle the ground, the petals exquisitely varied on the reverse side, and the stamens of bright salmon color; the large double anemones have come forth, certain that it is spring; on the higher crags by the wayside the Mediterranean heather has shaken out its delicate flowers, which fill the air with a mild fragrance; while blue violets, sweet of scent like the English, make our path a perfumed one. And this is winter.
We have made a late start, 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,
The party is at length mounted, and clatters away through the narrow streets. Donkey-riding is very good for people who think they cannot walk. It looks very much like riding, to a spectator; and it deceives the person undertaking it into an amount of exercise equal to walking. I have a great admiration for the donkey character. There never was such patience under wrong treatment, such return of devotion for injury. Their obstinacy, which is so much talked about, is only an exercise of the right of private judgment, and an intelligent exercise of it, no doubt, if we could take the donkey point of view, as so many of us are accused of doing in other things. I am certain of one thing: in any large excursion party there will be more obstinate people than obstinate donkeys; and yet the poor brutes get all the thwacks and thumps. We are bound to-day for the Punta della Campanella, the extreme point of the promontory, and ten miles away. The path lies up the steps from the new Massa carriage-road, now on the backbone of the ridge, and now in the recesses of the broken country. What an animated picture is the donkeycade, as it mounts the steeps, winding along the zigzags! Hear the little bridlebells jingling, the drivers groaning their " a-e-ugh, a-e-ugh," the riders making a merry din of laughter, and firing off a fusillade of ejaculations of delight and wonder.
The road is between high walls; round the sweep of curved terraces which rise above and below us, bearing the glistening olive; through glens and gullies; over and under arches, vine-grown,--how little we make use of the arch at home!--round sunny dells where orange orchards gleam; past shrines, little chapels perched on rocks, rude villas commanding most extensive sweeps of sea and shore. The almond trees are in full bloom, every twig a thickly-set spike of the pink and white blossoms; daisies and dandelions are out; the purple crocuses sprinkle the ground, the petals exquisitely varied on the reverse side, and the stamens of bright salmon color; the large double anemones have come forth, certain that it is spring; on the higher crags by the wayside the Mediterranean heather has shaken out its delicate flowers, which fill the air with a mild fragrance; while blue violets, sweet of scent like the English, make our path a perfumed one. And this is winter.
We have made a late start, 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,