Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/330

340 Our cicerone believed on the poets, on Virgil, and Horace, and swore to the truth of what they have said, and when I expressed a doubt about one or other of their statements, he grew violently angry and exclaimed:

“You do not believe on Virgil and Horace? Do you believe in the devil?” Later in the day he got drunk.

At Baja we glanced at the Piscina ad Miralilis at Mare Morto and the Elysian Fields—more remarkable from the celebrity which the poets have conferred upon them than from their own scenery; were delighted with the beautiful ruins of the Temple of Neptune on the shore, and towards evening crossed over to Ischia.

The thought of going across to Ischia occurred to the lively young Mrs. M., who has a peculiarly gentle, and at the same time, decided mode of carrying her point, and who, therefore, very naturally and agreeably becomes the leader. One very willingly does that which she wishes, because she is amiable, clever, and full of suggestions. She made an agreement with the boatmen, quietly dismissed the unreasonably rapacious, and selected two brothers, two very nice young fellows, who had their own boat and were ready to take us in it at a reasonable rate across the almost perfectly smooth sea, between Baja and Ischia, a sail, it was said, of at most two hours.

We took our places therefore, in the little red-painted boat, rowed round Cape Miseno, below the immense, perpendicular, rocky breast of which, the sea lay as calm as a mirror and as bright. On those