With these dispositions I proceeded; and soon the cliffs and copses opened to views of the Baian sea with the little isles of Niscita and Lazaretto, lifting themselves out of the waters. Procita and Ischia appeared at a distance invested with that purple bloom so inexpressibly beautiful, and peculiar to this fortunate climate. I hailed the prospect, and blessed the transparent air that gave me life and vigour to run down the rocks, and hie as fast as my savage across the plain to Pozzuoli. There we took bark and rowed out into the blue ocean, by the remains of a st.u.r.dy mole: many such, I imagine, adorned the bay in Roman ages, crowned by vast lengths of slender pillars; pavilions at their extremities and taper cypresses spiring above their bal.u.s.trades: this character of villa occurs very frequently in the paintings of Herculaneum.
We had soon crossed the bay, and landing on a bushy coast near some fragments of a temple which they say was raised to Hercules, advanced into the country by narrow tracks covered with moss and strewed with shining pebbles; to the right and left, broad ma.s.ses of luxuriant foliage, chesnut, bay and ilex, that shelter the ruins of sepulchral chambers. No parties of smart Englishmen and connoisseurs were about. I had all the land to myself, and mounted its steeps and penetrated into its recesses, with the importance of a discoverer. What a variety of narrow paths, between banks and shades, did I wildly follow! my savage laughing loud at my odd gestures and useless activity. He wondered I did not sc.r.a.pe the ground for medals, and pocket little bits of plaster, like other inquisitive young travellers that had gone before me.
After ascending some time, I followed him into the wondrous[10]
reservoir which Nero constructed to supply his fleet, when anch.o.r.ed in the neighbouring bay. A noise of trickling waters prevailed throughout this grand labyrinth of solid vaults and arches, that had almost lulled me to sleep as I rested myself on the celandine which carpets the floor; but curiosity urging me forward, I gained the upper air; walked amongst woods a few minutes, and then into grots and dismal excavations (prisons they call them) which began to weary me.
After having gone up and down in this manner for some time, we at last reached an eminence that commanded the Mare Morto, and Elysian fields trembling with reeds and poplars. The Dead Lake, a faithful emblem of eternal tranquillity, looked deep and solemn. A few peasants seemed fixed on its margin, their shadows reflected on the water. Turning from the lake I espied a rock at about a league distant, whose summit was clad with verdure, and finding this to be the promontory of Misenus, I immediately set my face to that quarter.
We pa.s.sed several dirty villages, inhabited by an ill-favoured generation, infamous for depredations and murders. Their gardens, however, discover some marks of industry; the fields are separated by neat hedges of cane, and a variety of herbs and pulses and Indian corn seemed to flourish in the inclosures. Insensibly we began to leave the cultivated lands behind us, and to lose ourselves in shady wilds, which, to all appearance, no mortal had ever trodden. Here were no paths, no inclosures; a primeval rudeness characterized the whole scene.
After forcing our way about a mile, through glades of shrubs and briars, we entered a lawn-like opening at the base of the cliff which takes its name from Misenus. The poets of the Augustan age would have celebrated such a meadow with the warmest raptures, and peopled its green expanse with all the sylvan demi-G.o.ds of their beautiful mythology. Here were springs issuing from rocks of pumice, and gra.s.sy hillocks partially concealed by thickets of bay.
Et circ.u.m irriguo surgebant lilia prato Candida purpureis mista papaveribus.
But as it is not the lot of human animals to be contented, instead of reposing in the vale, I scaled the rock, and was three parts dissolved in attaining its summit. The sun darted upon my head, I wished to avoid its immediate influence; no tree was near; the pleasant valley lay below at a considerable depth, and it was a long way to descend to it. Looking round and round, I spied something like a hut, under a crag on the edge of a dark fissure. Might I avail myself of its covert? My conductor answered in the affirmative, and added that it was inhabited by a good old woman, who never refused a cup of milk, or slice of bread, to refresh a weary traveller.
Thirst and fatigue urged me speedily down an intervening slope of stunted myrtle. Though oppressed with heat, I could not help deviating a few steps from the direct path to notice the uncouth rocks which rose frowning on every quarter. Above the hut, their appearance was truly formidable, bristled over with sharp-spired dwarf aloes, such as Lucifer himself might be supposed to have sown. Indeed I knew not whether I was not approaching some gate that leads to his abode, as I drew near a gulph (the fissure lately mentioned) and heard the deep hollow murmurs of the gusts which were imprisoned below. The savage, my guide, shuddered as he pa.s.sed by to apprise the old woman of my coming.
I felt strangely, and stared around me, and but half liked my situation.
In the midst of my doubts, forth tottered the old woman. "You are welcome," said she, in a feeble voice, but a better dialect than I had heard in the neighbourhood. Her look was more humane, and she seemed of a superior race to the inhabitants of the surrounding valleys. My savage treated her with peculiar deference. She had just given him some bread, with which he retired to a respectful distance bowing to the earth. I caught the mode, and was very obsequious, thinking myself on the point of experiencing a witch"s influence, and gaining, perhaps, some insight into the volume of futurity. She smiled at my agitation and kept beckoning me into the cottage.
"Now," thought I to myself, "I am upon the verge of an adventure." I saw nothing, however, but clay walls, a straw bed, some glazed earthen bowls, and a wooden crucifix. My shoes were loaded with sand: this my hostess perceived, and immediately kindling a fire in an inner part of the hovel, brought out some warm water to refresh my feet, and set some milk and chesnuts before me. This patriarchal attention was by no means indifferent after my tiresome ramble. I sat down opposite to the door which fronted the unfathomable gulph; beyond appeared the sea, of a deep cerulean, foaming with waves. The sky also was darkening apace with storms. Sadness came over me like a cloud, and I looked up to the old woman for consolation.
"And you too are sorrowful, young stranger," said she, "that come from the gay world! how must I feel, who pa.s.s year after year in these lonely mountains?" I answered that the weather affected me, and my spirits were exhausted by the walk.
All the while I spoke she looked at me with such a melancholy earnestness that I asked the cause, and began again to imagine myself in some fatal habitation,
Where more is meant than meets the ear.
"Your features," said she, "are wonderfully like those of an unfortunate young person, who, in this retirement...." The tears began to fall as she p.r.o.nounced these words; my curiosity was fired. "Tell me," continued I, "what you mean; who was this youth for whom you are so interested?
and why did he seclude himself in this wild region? Your kindness to him might no doubt have alleviated, in some measure, the horrors of the place; but may G.o.d defend me from pa.s.sing the night near such a gulph! I would not trust myself in a despairing moment."
"It is," said she, "a place of horrors. I tremble to relate what has happened on this very spot; but your manner interests me, and though I am little given to narrations, for once I will unlock my lips concerning the secrets of yonder fatal chasm.
"I was born in a distant part of Italy, and have known better days. In my youth fortune smiled upon my family, but in a few years they withered away; no matter by what accident. I am not going to talk much of myself. Have patience a few moments! A series of unfortunate events reduced me to indigence, and drove me to this desert, where, from rearing goats and making their milk into cheese, by a different method than is common in the Neapolitan state, I have, for about thirty years, prolonged a sorrowful existence. My silent grief and constant retirement had made me appear to some a saint, and to others a sorceress. The slight knowledge I have of plants has been exaggerated, and, some years back, the hours I gave up to prayer, and the recollection of former friends, lost to me for ever! were cruelly intruded upon by the idle and the ignorant. But soon I sank into obscurity: my little recipes were disregarded, and you are the first stranger who, for these twelve months past, has visited my abode. Ah, would to G.o.d its solitude had ever remained inviolate!
"It is now three-and-twenty years," and she looked upon some characters cut on the planks of the cottage, "since I was sitting by moonlight, under that cliff you view to the right, my eyes fixed on the ocean, my mind lost in the memory of my misfortunes, when I heard a step, and starting up, a figure stood before me. It was a young man, in a rich habit, with streaming hair, and looks that bespoke the utmost terror. I knew not what to think of this sudden apparition. "Mother," said he with faltering accents, "let me rest under your roof; and deliver me not up to those who thirst after my blood. Take this gold; take all, all!"
"Surprise held me speechless; the purse fell to the ground; the youth stared wildly on every side: I heard many voices beyond the rocks; the wind bore them distinctly, but presently they died away. I took courage, and a.s.sured the youth my cot should shelter him. "Oh! thank you, thank you!" answered he, and pressed my hand. He shared my scanty provision.
"Overcome with toil (for I had worked hard in the day) sleep closed my eyes for a short interval. When I awoke the moon was set, but I heard my unhappy guest sobbing in darkness. I disturbed him not. Morning dawned, and he was fallen into a slumber. The tears bubbled out of his closed eyelids, and coursed one another down his wan cheeks. I had been too wretched myself not to respect the sorrows of another: neglecting therefore my accustomed occupations, I drove away the flies that buzzed around his temples. His breast heaved high with sighs, and he cried loudly in his sleep for mercy.
"The beams of the sun dispelling his dream, he started up like one that had heard the voice of an avenging angel, and hid his face with his hands. I poured some milk down his parched throat. "Oh, mother!" he exclaimed, "I am a wretch unworthy of compa.s.sion; the cause of innumerable sufferings; a murderer! a parricide!" My blood curdled to hear a stripling utter such dreadful words, and behold such agonising sighs swell in so young a bosom; for I marked the sting of conscience urging him to disclose what I am going to relate.
"It seems he was of high extraction, nursed in the pomps and luxuries of Naples, the pride and darling of his parents, adorned with a thousand lively talents, which the keenest sensibility conspired to improve.
Unable to fix any bounds to whatever became the object of his desires, he pa.s.sed his first years in roving from one extravagance to another, but as yet there was no crime in his caprices.
"At length it pleased Heaven to visit his family, and make their idol the slave of an unbridled pa.s.sion. He had a friend, who from his birth had been devoted to his interest, and placed all his confidence in him.
This friend loved to distraction a young creature, the most graceful of her s.e.x (as I can witness), and she returned his affection. In the exultation of his heart he showed her to the wretch whose tale I am about to tell. He sickened at her sight. She too caught fire at his glances. They languished--they consumed away--they conversed, and his persuasive language finished what his guilty glances had begun.
"Their flame was soon discovered, for he disdained to conceal a thought, however dishonourable. The parents warned the youth in the tenderest manner; but advice and prudent counsels were to him so loathsome, that unable to contain his rage, and infatuated with love, he menaced the life of his friend as the obstacle of his enjoyment. Coolness and moderation were opposed to violence and frenzy, and he found himself treated with a contemptuous gentleness. Stricken to the heart, he wandered about for some time like one entranced. Meanwhile the nuptials were preparing, and the lovely girl he had perverted found ways to let him know she was about to be torn from his embraces.
"He raved like a demoniac, and rousing his dire spirit, applied to a malignant wretch who sold the most inveterate poisons. These he infused into a cup of pure iced water and presented to his friend, and to his own too fond confiding father, who soon after they had drunk the fatal potion began evidently to pine away. He marked the progress of their dissolution with a horrid firmness, he let the moment pa.s.s beyond which all antidotes were vain. His friend expired; and the young criminal, though he beheld the dews of death hang on his parent"s forehead, yet stretched not forth his hand. In a short s.p.a.ce the miserable father breathed his last, whilst his son was sitting aloof in the same chamber.
"The sight overcame him. He felt, for the first time, the pangs of remorse. His agitations pa.s.sed not unnoticed. He was watched: suspicions beginning to unfold he took alarm, and one evening escaped; but not without previously informing the partner of his crimes which way he intended to flee. Several pursued; but the inscrutable will of Providence blinded their search, and I was doomed to behold the effects of celestial vengeance.
"Such are the chief circ.u.mstances of the tale I gathered from the youth.
I swooned whilst he related it, and could take no sustenance. One whole day afterwards did I pray the Lord, that I might die rather than be near an incarnate demon. With what indignation did I now survey that slender form and those flowing tresses, which had interested me before so much in his behalf!
"No sooner did he perceive the change in my countenance, than sullenly retiring to yonder rock he sat careless of the sun and scorching winds; for it was now the summer solstice. He was equally heedless of the unwholesome dews. When midnight came my horrors were augmented; and I meditated several times to abandon my hovel and fly to the next village; but a power more than human chained me to the spot and fortified my mind.
"I slept, and it was late next morning when some one called at the wicket of the little fold, where my goats are penned. I arose, and saw a peasant of my acquaintance leading a female strangely m.u.f.fled up, and casting her eyes on the ground. My heart misgave me. I thought this was the very maid who had been the cause of such atrocious wickedness. Nor were my conjectures ill-founded. Regardless of the clown who stood by in stupid astonishment, she fell to the earth and bathed my hand with tears. Her trembling lips with difficulty enquired after the youth; and, as she spoke, a glow of conscious guilt lightened up her pale countenance.
"The full recollection of her lover"s crimes shot through my memory. I was incensed, and would have spurned her away; but, she clung to my garments and seemed to implore my pity with a look so full of misery, that, relenting, I led her in silence to the extremity of the cliff where the youth was seated, his feet dangling above the sea. His eye was rolling wildly around, but it soon fixed upon the object for whose sake he had doomed himself to perdition.
"Far be it from me to describe their ecstasies, or the eagerness with which they sought each other"s embraces. I indignantly turned my head away; and, driving my goats to a recess amongst the rocks, sat revolving in my mind these strange events. I neglected procuring any provision for my unwelcome guests; and about midnight returned homewards by the light of the moon which shone serenely in the heavens. Almost the first object her beams discovered was the guilty maid sustaining the head of her lover, who had fainted through weakness and want of nourishment. I fetched some dry bread, and dipping it in milk laid it before them.
Having performed this duty I set open the door of my hut, and retiring to a neighbouring cavity, there stretched myself on a heap of leaves and offered my prayers to Heaven.
"A thousand fears, till this moment unknown, thronged into my fancy. The shadow of leaves that chequered the entrance to the grot, seemed to a.s.sume in my distempered imagination the form of ugly reptiles, and I repeatedly shook my garments. The flow of the distant surges was deepened by my apprehensions into distant groans: in a word, I could not rest; but issuing from the cavern as hastily as my trembling knees would allow, paced along the edge of the precipice. An unaccountable impulse would have hurried my steps, yet such was my terror and shivering, that unable to advance to my hut or retreat to the cavern, I was about to shield myself from the night in a sandy crevice, when a loud shriek pierced my ear. My fears had confused me; I was in fact near my hovel and scarcely three paces from the brink of the cavern: it was thence the cries proceeded.
"Advancing in a cold shudder to its edge, part of which was newly crumbled in, I discovered the form of the young man suspended by one foot to a branch of juniper that grew several feet down: thus dreadfully did he hang over the gulph from the branch bending with his weight. His features were distorted, his eye-b.a.l.l.s glared with agony, and his screams became so shrill and terrible that I lost all power of affording a.s.sistance. Fixed, I stood with my eyes riveted upon the criminal, who incessantly cried out, "O G.o.d! O Father! save me if there be yet mercy!
save me, or I sink into the abyss!"
"I am convinced he did not see me; for not once did he implore my help.
His voice grew faint, and as I gazed intent upon him, the loose thong of leather, which had entangled itself in the branches by which he hung suspended, gave way, and he fell into utter darkness. I sank to the earth in a trance; during which a sound like the rush of pennons a.s.saulted my ear: methought the evil spirit was bearing off his soul; but when I lifted up my eyes nothing stirred; the stillness that prevailed was awful.
"The moon hanging low over the waves afforded a sickly light, by which I perceived some one coming down that white cliff you see before you; and I soon heard the voice of the young woman calling aloud on her guilty lover. She stopped. She repeated again and again her exclamation; but there was no reply. Alarmed and frantic she hurried along the path, and now I saw her on the promontory, and now by yonder pine, devouring with her glances every crevice in the rock. At length perceiving me, she flew to where I stood, by the fatal precipice, and having noticed the fragments fresh crumbled in, pored importunately on my countenance. I continued pointing to the chasm; she trembled not; her tears could not flow; but she divined the meaning. "He is lost!" said she; "the earth has swallowed him! but, as I have shared with him the highest joy, so will I partake his torments. I will follow: dare not to hinder me."
"Like the phantoms I have seen in dreams, she glanced beside me; and, clasping her hands above her head, lifted a steadfast look on the hemisphere, and viewed the moon with an anxiousness that told me she was bidding it farewell for ever. Observing a silken handkerchief on the ground, with which she had but an hour ago bound her lover"s temples, she s.n.a.t.c.hed it up, and imprinting it with burning kisses, thrust it into her bosom. Once more, expanding her arms in the last act of despair and miserable pa.s.sion, she threw herself, with a furious leap, into the gulph.
"To its margin I crawled on my knees, and there did I remain in the most dreadful darkness; for now the moon was sunk, the sky obscured with storms, and a tempestuous blast ranging the ocean. Showers poured thick upon me, and the lightning, in clear and frequent flashes, gave me terrifying glimpses of yonder accursed chasm.
"Stranger, dost thou believe in our Redeemer? in his most holy mother?
in the tenets of our faith?" I answered with reverence, but said her faith and mine were different. "Then," continued the aged woman, "I will not declare before a heretic what were the visions of that night of vengeance!" She paused; I was silent.
After a short interval, with deep and frequent sighs, she resumed her narrative. "Daylight began to dawn as if with difficulty, and it was late before its radiance had tinged the watery and tempestuous clouds. I was still kneeling by the gulph in prayer when the cliffs began to brighten, and the beams of the morning sun to strike against me. Then did I rejoice. Then no longer did I think myself of all human beings the most abject and miserable. How different did I feel myself from those, fresh plunged into the abodes of torment, and driven for ever from the morning!
"Three days elapsed in total solitude: on the fourth, some grave and ancient persons arrived from Naples, who questioned me, repeatedly, about the wretched lovers, and to whom I related their fate with every dreadful particular. Soon after I learned that all discourse concerning them was expressly stopped, and that no prayers were offered up for their souls."
With these words, as well as I recollect, the old woman ended her singular narration. My blood thrilled as I walked by the gulph to call my guide, who stood aloof under the cliffs. He seemed to think, from the paleness of my countenance, that I had heard some gloomy prediction, and shook his head, when I turned round to bid my old hostess adieu! It was a melancholy evening, and I could not refrain from tears, whilst, winding through the defiles of the rocks, the sad scenes which had pa.s.sed amongst them recurred to my memory.
Traversing a wild thicket, we soon regained the sh.o.r.e, where I rambled a few minutes whilst the peasant went for the boatmen. The last streaks of light were quivering on the waters when I stepped into the bark, and wrapping myself up in an awning, slept till we reached Puzzoli, some of whose inhabitants came forth with torches to light us home.
LETTER XXIV.