Returning from Capri late in the afternoon, we had one of those effects which are the despair of artists.  I had been told that twilights are short here, and that, when the sun disappeared, color vanished from the sky.  There was a wonderful light on all the inner bay, as we put off from shore.  Ischia was one mass of violet color, As we got from under the island, there was the sun, a red ball of fire, just dipping into the sea.  At once the whole horizon line of water became a bright crimson, which deepened as evening advanced, glowing with more intense fire, and holding a broad band of what seemed solid color for more than three quarters of an hour.  The colors, meantime, on the level water, never were on painter’s palette, and never were counterfeited by the changeable silks of eastern looms; and this gorgeous spectacle continued till the stars came out, crowding the sky with silver points.

Our boatmen, who had been reinforced at Capri, and were inspired either by the wine of the island or the beauty of the night, pulled with new vigor, and broke out again and again into the wild songs of this coast.  A favorite was the Garibaldi song, which invariably ended in a cheer and a tiger, and threw the singers into such a spurt of excitement that the oars forgot to keep time, and there was more splash than speed.  The singers all sang one part in minor:  there was no harmony, the voices were not rich, and the melody was not remarkable; but there was, after all, a wild pathos in it.  Music is very much here what it is in Naples.  I have to keep saying to myself that Italy is a land of song; else I should think that people mistake noise for music.

The boatmen are an honest set of fellows, as Italians go; and, let us hope, not unworthy followers of their patron, St. Antonino, whose chapel is on the edge of the gorge near the Villa Nardi.  A silver image of the saint, half life-size, stands upon the rich marble altar.  This valuable statue has been, if tradition is correct, five times captured and carried away by marauders, who have at different times sacked Sorrento of its marbles, bronzes, and precious things, and each time, by some mysterious providence, has found its way back again,—­an instance of constancy in a solid silver image which is worthy of commendation.  The little chapel is hung all about with votive offerings in wax of arms, legs, heads, hands, effigies, and with coarse lithographs, in frames, of storms at sea and perils of ships, hung up by sailors who, having escaped the dangers of the deep, offer these tributes to their dear saint.  The skirts of the image are worn quite smooth with kissing.  Underneath it, at the back of the altar, an oil light is always burning; and below repose the bones of the holy man.