ests with broad hats and
huge cloaks; sailors with blue shirts and red girdles; urchins who
almost instinctively cry for a "soldo" and break into the Tarantella if
you look at them; quiet, grave, farmer-peasants with the Phrygian cap;
coral-fishers fresh from the African coast with tales of storm and
tempest and the Madonna's help--make up group after group of Caprese
life as one looks idly on, a life not specially truthful perhaps or
moral or high-minded, but sunny and pleasant and pretty enough, and
harmonizing in its own genial way with the sunshine and beauty around.

Its rough inns, its want of English doctors, the difficulties of
communication with the mainland from which its residents are utterly cut
off in bad weather, make Capri an unsuitable resort for invalids in
spite of a climate which if inferior to that of Catania is distinctly
superior to that of either San Remo or Mentone. Those who remember the
Riviera with no little gratitude may still shrink from the memory of its
sharp transitions of temperature, the chill shade into which one plunges
from the direct heat of its sun-rays, and the bitter cold of its winter
nights. Out of the sun indeed the air of the Riviera towards Christmas
is generally keen, and a cloudy day with an east wind sweeping along
the shore will bring back unpleasant reminiscences of the England one
has left behind. Capri is no hotter perhaps in the sunshine, but it is
distinctly warmer in the shade. The wraps and shawls which are a
necessity of health at San Remo or Mentone are far less necessary in the
South. One may live frankly in the open air in a way which would hardly
be safe elsewhere, and it is just life in the open air which is most
beneficial to invalids. It is this natural warmth which tells on the
temperature of the nights. The sudden change at sunset which is the
terror of the Riviera is far less perceptible at Capri; indeed the
average night temperature is but two degrees lower than that of the day.
The air too is singularly pure and invigorating, for the village and its
hotels stand some four or five hundred feet above the sea, and there are
some fairly level and accessible walks along the hill-sides. At San
Remo, or in the eastern bay of Mentone, one purchases shelter by living
in a teacup and the only chance of exercise lies in climbing up its
sides. But it must fairly be owned that these advantages are accompanied
by some very serious drawbacks. If Capri is fairly free