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Its original form was unaltered for nearly four centuries, when, in 1502, Flavio Gioja of Positano, near the town of Amalfi, on the coast of Calabria, a place celebrated for its maritime enterprise, improved upon the primitive rude and simple instrument by suspending the needle on a centre, and enclosing it in a box.
Angelo, against which the sunshine dashes in waves; below us, sheer down two thousand feet, the city of Positano, a nest of brown houses, thickly clustered on a conical spur, and lying along the shore, the home of three thousand people, with a running jump I think I could land in the midst of it, a pygmy city, inhabited by mites, as we look down upon it; a little beach of white sand, a sailboat lying on it, and some fishermen just embarking; a long hotel on the beach; beyond, by the green shore, a country seat charmingly situated amid trees and vines; higher up, the ravine-seamed hill, little stone huts, bits of ruin, towers, arches.
History has, in short, long deprived poor disconsolate Positano of its vaunted glory in the production of a medieval scientist whose very existence has now become a matter of speculation.
They had just sighted the ancient town of Positano and were circling a gigantic point of rock, when the great adventure of the day overtook them. Without warning the wind came whistling around them in a great gale, which speedily increased in fury until it drove the blinded horses reeling against the low parapet and pushed upon the carriage as if determined to dash it over the precipice.
His lips were tight set and the girls, slyly observing his face, were sure his wrist was hurting him much more than he cared to acknowledge. Circling around the cliff beyond Positano the sun greeted them, shining from out a blue sky, and they wondered what had become of the bad weather they had so lately experienced.
From the point of view of history the chief interest of Positano centres in the time-honoured tradition that Flavio Gioja, the original inventor of the compass, was a native of this town, once a flourishing and important member of the group of cities which comprised the Amalfitan Republic in its palmy days.
Positano is a thriving as well as an ancient place, and of its dense population we have abundant evidence in the swarms of children that pursue our carriage, brown-skinned picturesque little nuisances, shrilly and incessantly crying out for soldi.
As we advance eastward from Positano we obtain glimpses from time to time of mountain valleys thickly clothed with brushwood, and far above our heads we perceive Agerola perched aloft under the shadow of the topmost crag of Monte Sant’ Angelo—Agerola, where wolves still haunt the dim recesses of the chestnut woods, and where the charcoal burners can tell us of the great grey Were-Wolf that prowls round the village on stormy nights.
"I am going on at once to Sorrento," he said, meeting Elgar afterwards in the garden. "To-morrow I shall cross over the hills to Positano and Amalfi. Suppose you come with me?" The other hesitated. "You mean you are going to walk?" "No. I have traps to carry on from the station. We should have a carriage to Sorrento, and to-morrow a donkey for the baggage." They paced about, hands in pockets.
Nor has the question of his place of birth ever been satisfactorily settled, for both Positano and Amalfi claim this hero of science for a son, although only in Amalfitan annals can the disputed name be detected.
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