DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.67375#0392
306
NAPLES AND ITS ENVIRONS.
So great is their poverty that they are glad to earn money
as beasts of burden, and from fourteen years they carry
the heavy antique jars full of water, or baskets of stone or
earth from the bottom of the island to the town, bearing
weights upon their slender necks that many a stalwart man
would shrink from having laid upon his shoulders.
It frequently happens that a boat lands a cargo of stone
to be carried up the hill for a building. At once a
procession of twenty-five or thirty girls is seen mounting
the steep path with their painful burdens. They go up
and down from twelve to sixteen times daily for several
successive days, even in midsummer heat. These files
of burden-bearers are very attractive to artists, who indus-
triously sketch their graceful figures; and no wonder,
for they recall the women of the Nile and India, and all
models of living, active grace that one can remember.
They are gay and merry at their work, and when at noon
they seek the friendly shade of some spreading tree to eat
their bread and a bit of fruit, they laugh and chatter,
and return to their toil as light of heart as of feet, on
which they are like gazelles. Gregorovius1 thus describes
one of these girls, who was his friend : —
“ If I wished to draw a picture of poverty, the most peaceful
and cheerful that could be found, I should describe it in the
person of the fair Costanziella. After she has spent a long
hot day in transporting on her head a whole pyramid of stones
from the shore up to the old picturesque convent, she reposes
during the evening in the doorway of her house, and refreshes
herself with the most beautiful music ; for she is an accom-
plished performer on the jews-harp. She has played for me
upon this instrument, with inimitable grace and skill, many
charming airs, — all kinds of sea-fancies, songs of sirens in the
Blue Grotto, songs without words, strange airs to which no
1 “ The Island of Capri,” by Ferdinand Gregorovius, translated by
Lilian Clarke.
NAPLES AND ITS ENVIRONS.
So great is their poverty that they are glad to earn money
as beasts of burden, and from fourteen years they carry
the heavy antique jars full of water, or baskets of stone or
earth from the bottom of the island to the town, bearing
weights upon their slender necks that many a stalwart man
would shrink from having laid upon his shoulders.
It frequently happens that a boat lands a cargo of stone
to be carried up the hill for a building. At once a
procession of twenty-five or thirty girls is seen mounting
the steep path with their painful burdens. They go up
and down from twelve to sixteen times daily for several
successive days, even in midsummer heat. These files
of burden-bearers are very attractive to artists, who indus-
triously sketch their graceful figures; and no wonder,
for they recall the women of the Nile and India, and all
models of living, active grace that one can remember.
They are gay and merry at their work, and when at noon
they seek the friendly shade of some spreading tree to eat
their bread and a bit of fruit, they laugh and chatter,
and return to their toil as light of heart as of feet, on
which they are like gazelles. Gregorovius1 thus describes
one of these girls, who was his friend : —
“ If I wished to draw a picture of poverty, the most peaceful
and cheerful that could be found, I should describe it in the
person of the fair Costanziella. After she has spent a long
hot day in transporting on her head a whole pyramid of stones
from the shore up to the old picturesque convent, she reposes
during the evening in the doorway of her house, and refreshes
herself with the most beautiful music ; for she is an accom-
plished performer on the jews-harp. She has played for me
upon this instrument, with inimitable grace and skill, many
charming airs, — all kinds of sea-fancies, songs of sirens in the
Blue Grotto, songs without words, strange airs to which no
1 “ The Island of Capri,” by Ferdinand Gregorovius, translated by
Lilian Clarke.