Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/627

614 all comers—warned us to lose no time, so we determined to accept the services of the first guide who should offer himself on landing; and committing to him the care of our sacs de nuit, and of hiring donkeys to take us to Casamicciola, indulge our artistic estro by setting off immediately to sketch.

We were not as yet aware of all our importance and its inconveniences. It was too early in the year for the water-drinkers’ season to have commenced, and we were among the first visitors. The appearance of our boat was therefore the signal for the simultaneous appearance on the shore of half the guides and donkeys in the town, and more were seen advancing in the distance. The candidates for our custom came running down the beach and even into the water, pressing their services upon us with the accustomed volubility of their class.

“I strongly recommend the Signori to engage me in preference to all other guides,” said one disinterested gentleman.

“I charge no more, and I know a great deal more; I can tell them the dates of all the eruptions of the mountain. I can take them to all the best points of view. I was guide to an illustrious English painter, Stefil (Stanfield?) was his name, and went everywhere with him.”

As there was no basis of comparison, except of the outward man, where all were unknown to us, we accepted him, and installed him in the care of the carpet-bags, desiring him to come for us with the donkeys in an hour to a spot whence we were going to make our sketches. But we were not to be let off so easily. The donkey-drivers would not submit to the indignity of being selected by the guide, but insisted on an appeal to ourselves, and the bipeds crowded round us screaming, jabbering, pushing, dragging the unfortunate quadrupeds by the bridle, vaunting the strength and speed of one—the saddle of another—all stunning and bewildering us with their noise; till, at last, a man who was running backwards before us up the street stumbled over a little half-naked urchin who had joined the cortège to stare at us, rolled the child over, fell himself against a donkey which immediately began kicking, and a chorus of loud brays and a battle royal ensued. How to escape from the melée was now our only question, when we were unexpectedly rescued. A respectable-looking elderly gentleman, gliding into the throng, touched my arm, drew us quietly away, and opening a door in the wall, said politely:

“Come in, and leave them to fight it out.”

We found ourselves suddenly restored to peace and quietness, in a long narrow paved passage through which our conductor brought us to a pleasant room overlooking the sea, and commanding a beautiful view of the castle. Placing chairs on the balcony, he said:

“You want to draw?—all strangers draw this. Stay as long as you like. You will be in nobody’s way.”

And with a bow and “good evening” this beneficent person vanished like one of the mysterious veiled guides who inaugurate the adventures of unsuspecting travellers in the “Arabian Nights.”

Ours had, however, no romantic end. We were shortly joined by the guide, who had escaped from the fray without loss of life or limb, and when the fading daylight obliged us to quit our employment and seek the little piazza and the donkeys, we found them standing patiently awaiting us, looking as meek and enduring as if they had never lent the assistance of their heels and