lustre more superb. Throw a stone into the water, and the myriad of tiny

bubbles that are created flash out a brilliant glare like blue theatrical

fires. Dip an oar, and its blade turns to splendid frosted silver,

tinted with blue. Let a man jump in, and instantly he is cased in an

armor more gorgeous than ever kingly Crusader wore.

Then we went to Ischia, but I had already been to that island and tired

myself to death "resting" a couple of days and studying human villainy,

with the landlord of the Grande Sentinelle for a model. So we went to

Procida, and from thence to Pozzuoli, where St. Paul landed after he

sailed from Samos. I landed at precisely the same spot where St. Paul

landed, and so did Dan and the others. It was a remarkable coincidence.

St. Paul preached to these people seven days before he started to Rome.

Nero's Baths, the ruins of Baiae, the Temple of Serapis; Cumae, where the

Cumaen Sybil interpreted the oracles, the Lake Agnano, with its ancient

submerged city still visible far down in its depths--these and a hundred

other points of interest we examined with critical imbecility, but the

Grotto of the Dog claimed our chief attention, because we had heard and

read so much about it. Every body has written about the Grotto del Cane

and its poisonous vapors, from Pliny down to Smith, and every tourist has

held a dog over its floor by the legs to test the capabilities of the

place. The dog dies in a minute and a half--a chicken instantly. As a

general thing, strangers who crawl in there to sleep do not get up until

they are called. And then they don't either. The stranger that ventures

to sleep there takes a permanent contract. I longed to see this grotto.

366

The Innocents Abroad