Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1888-07-12
cAPRl AND cAPRlorEs.
An Island in tho Mediterranean Famed
Song and Story.

An Island in tho Mediterranean Famed In
Song and Story.
| In order to see Capri to the best ad-
vantage the traveller should make the
| tour of the island in a rowbOat. This
takes about three hours, and the
rugged formation of the rocks, their
variegated colors, the deep blue. or
| light-greenish blue, of the water, and
the wonderfully beautiful grottOes,
| with their mysterious sounds, make
these few hours seem like time spent
| in fairyland. The Blue Grotto has be-
come celebrated the world over, and it
owes its exceptional beauty to the fact
| that through the present small en-
trance very little light can enter, but
the suns rays passing through the in
digo-blue water are refracted; the blue
water absOrbs the red and yellow rays
and gives to the cave its wonderful
blue aspect. The island of Capri is
composed of limestone, and these
caves are formed by the chemical &C
ton of carbonic acid in the atmos-
phere, carried in the water, upon the
carbonates of lime and magnesia, if
there be assure in the strata through
which the acidified water may make
its descent. In the course of time the
assure is worn larger, and the water
dissOlves and bears away with it the
stratum through which it passes. The
action of the seawater, through the
beating of the waves, assists the rain
water in enlarging the cave.
The inhabitants of Capri retain
Il e
Greek ancestors, as we'll as much of
their beauty. The women are cele-
brated for their clear-cut features,
healthy, olive compilations, their
dark, laughing eyes and their
fine straight forms, which the
carrying of burdens on the head
tends to increase. Most of the
men are away from the island nearly
the whole of the year at sea, either
coral fishing or employed in the coast
ing trade, and for this reason almost
all labor is done by women. The Cap
riOte of to-day is as avaricious as his
celebrated ancestor of the Grecian isles,
and in making a bargain with him it is
necessary to stipulate every thing be-
fore hand; even then he will find some
excuse to increase the sum agreed upon
when the time for payment comes.
Quite a number of Englishmen of
good families, among them a Lord,
have married Capri girls, owing, no
doubt, to their beauty and winning
smiles, and have settled down to a
''dolce far niente" existence on this lit
tie island in the tideless summer sea.
1t is pleasant to see the strong, healthy
looking, handsome girls toiling up the
rocky paths with burdens on their
heads, but laughing and chatting with
infectious vivacity and casting be-
witching glance at the tourist, who
has come from crowded cities, where
civilization makes it's iron rule felt and
cramps or develops our faculties and
sensations as it chooses. We can not
help feeling that, after all, we. who
are born to highly civilized life, have
not all the good things in this world
as we look back on the struggle for
gain or honor among the educated,
whose faces are marked with the lines
OF care and thought, and compare the
picture Of selfish life in the modern
gain-getting countries with the happy
''sans souci" existence of all those who
have eaten the lotos and dwell on this
bright gem of the sea. kart Kd-
rOly, in San Francisco Chronicle.