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At the Villa Caposele one can see Gaeta itself to the south and Ischia in the blue sea, Casamicciola facing one. I remember how the Italian nature came out when I arranged to go to the station to take the train for Sparanise. I had but little baggage and it was put in a truck for me by the landlord of the Hotel dei Fiori. I walked into the station and the boy who pulled the truck followed.
The town of Aden lies some distance from the shore where the landing is made, in the very centre of an extinct volcano, the sides of which have fallen in and form its foundation, affording, as may reasonably be supposed, an opportunity for yet another calamity like that which so lately visited Ischia, and which swallowed up Casamicciola.
It is a two-mile walk through stony lanes overhung by branches of fig and orange from Casamicciola to Lacco, a large village well situated on a little bay which is distinguished by a curious mushroom-shaped rock, aptly nicknamed “Il Fungo” by the natives.
It is some satisfaction to learn that this piece of unselfish heroism and devotion on the part of the priest was officially acknowledged, for the humble curate of Casamicciola was afterwards made a prelate by Pope Leo XIII. in recognition of his signal services.
One dark, thick-foliaged olive, I remember, leaning from the tufa over a lizard-haunted wall, feathered waist-high in huge acanthus-leaves. The whole rich orchard ground of Casamicciola is dominated by Monte Epomeo, the extinct volcano which may be called the raison d'être of Ischia; for this island is nothing but a mountain lifted by the energy of fire from the sea-basement.
Some day perhaps Teneriffe will wake again, either in earthquakes or lava-flow, and cause a Casamicciola or a Catania. The cones over against Garachico seemed much alive to me, and had I not warmed frozen hands at the very earth fires themselves? I broke out hot sulphur with the pick of my ice-axe.
Formerly the most populous and prosperous township of the whole island, Casamicciola consists to-day principally of a mass of shapeless ruins, together with a number of dismal corrugated iron huts grouped round an ugly modern church, nor can its exquisite views and luxuriant gardens make amends for the settled air of melancholy which continues to brood over this unlucky spot.
The windows are but loopholes, leaning from which the town of Forio is seen, 2500 feet below; and the jagged precipices of the menacing Falange toss their contorted horror forth to sea and sky. Through gallery and grotto we wound in twilight under a monk's guidance, and came at length upon the face of the crags above Casamicciola.
Then we asked the boy, Giuseppe, whether he could guide us on foot down the cliffs of Monte Epomeo to Casamicciola. This he was willing and able to do; for he told me that he had spent many months each year upon the hill-side, tending goats. When rough weather came, he wrapped himself in a blanket from the snow that falls and melts upon the ledges.
It was in the summer that Ibsen habitually composed with the greatest ease, and Peer Gynt did not trove smoothly until the poet settled in the Villa Pisani, at Casamicciola, on the island of Ischia. His own account was: "After Brand came Peer Gynt, as though of itself. It was written in Southern Italy, in Ischia and at Sorrento. So far away from one's readers one becomes reckless.
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