When she has passed, silence drops once more upon the dusky alleys. Far off, the sound of chanting rings faintly across the houses, and the slow music of the march sighs through the air. Then even that dies away, and on the spot where Tasso opened his eyes upon a troubled world there is no sound but the wind stirring among the orange blossoms, or the perpetual soft washing of the sea about the base of the black cliffs. CHAPTER XII CAPRI It is a common observation among those who visit Capri that the first close view of the island is disappointing. The distant lights and colours are all gone. The cliffs look barren. The island has a stony aspect, inaccessible and wild. The steamer coming from Sorrento reaches first the cliff of the Salto, concerning which I shall have more to say hereafter, and only when that tremendous precipice has been rounded does one see the saddle of the island, a neck of land which unites the two mountain peaks so long watched from the mainland, a continuous garden, at the head of which stands the town of Capri, while the Marina is at its foot. It must be admitted that the landing-place of Capri is on the way to lose its quaintness, and is even in some danger of taking on the aspect of an excursionists' tea-garden. Hotels and restaurants spring up on every side, and a broad, winding road has been carried in long convolutions from the sea up to the town. Capri is striving hard to provide conveniences for her visitors, and no longer conducts them up the hill by the ancient staircase, which was good enough for friends and enemies alike in all ages till our own, and is still so broad and easy that a donkey can go up it with less distress than it will experience on the hot and dusty road. However, the staircase is still there, and as it is my odd whim to care nothing for the nice new road, but to prefer entering Capri by the old front door, I consign my luggage to the strapping, stout-armed sirens who pounced upon it as soon as the landing-boat touched shore, and go up the cool and shadowy steps between walls of ivy and deep-rooted creepers, over which the budding vines project their tendrils, and blossoming fruit trees send a drift of petals falling on the stair. From time to time I cross the noisy road, and go on in peace again with greater thankfulness, till, after some twenty minutes' climb, I emerge beneath an old vaulted gateway, from the summit of which defence unnumbered generations of Capriotes must have parleyed with their enemies, fierce Algerines, followers of Dragut or of Barbarossa, merciless sea-wolves who descended on this luckless island again and again, attracted, no doubt, by its proximity to the wealthy cities of the mainland and the streams of commerce which were ever going by its shores.