How, one asks, did the Turks get past this point? There is no way round, save for the birds. They must have stormed it, coming on in twos and threes--which is another way of saying that the defenders were either fools or cowards. The mere sight of a Turk turned men's hearts to water, it would seem. When the corsairs had won the gatehouse, they were still at some distance from the castle, which towers on a crag several hundred feet higher, strengthened with towers, and having guardrooms for a substantial number of defenders. It is not often that a castle wins and keeps the name of the enemy who stormed it. One may surmise that Barbarossa committed some atrocious deed when the fight was over. There is a dizzy precipice on the higher side of the castle. Probably all the garrison went over it who had not fallen by the sword. It is a grand and beautiful spot. There is no end to the pleasures of these mountain slopes; one may wander over Monte Solaro for many days, and yet remain in doubt from what point or in what light its wondrous views are finest. [Illustration: NAPLES--ON THE MODERN SIDE--LOOKING TOWARDS CAPRI FROM THE CORSO VITTORIO EMMANUELE] As one comes down the winding road, in the shadow of the high grey scars, discoloured with patches of black brushwood, the saddle of the island looks picturesque and homely. The white town nestles on the ridge between two conical hills, the Telegrafo and the Castiglione, the latter crowned by a small fort, the modern representative of an ancient stronghold which was the last defence of the Capriotes in the days of piracy. It is a good and defensible position, but the stranger, remembering the almost inaccessible plateau of Anacapri, may wonder not unnaturally why all the inhabitants of the island did not retreat thither on the approach of danger. The answer is that on the small island there are two nations, despising each other like most other neighbours. To the undiscerning eye of the stranger the Capriotes are a pleasant, friendly race; but any child in Anacapri will declare them to be full of malice and deceit, unworthy neighbours of those who look down on them from a moral elevation no less remarkable than the physical. The Capriotes, on their part, would not have dreamt of taking refuge in Anacapri, knowing that here, as elsewhere, only bad men dwell in lofty places. They had a refuge of their own in times of danger--a vast cavern in the hill of Castiglione, where the women and children used to crowd together when the pirates came. It could tell woeful stories, but has not been examined with the care that its past history demands.