No one knows when Vesuvius may do the same thing again, but the people in Naples never seem to think of such a thing; they don’t worry; they go about the streets singing happily; in fact, it’s one of the few cities in the World where people sing on the streets.

We may hear people whistling on the street in this country, but seldom, if ever, do we hear them sing on the streets. Singing may not be a sign of happiness at all, but people in Naples sing and sing, especially at night. Taxi drivers sing, ragged street urchins sing, beggars sing, and they sing songs you hear at concerts or in the opera. One of the greatest singers that ever lived, who now is dead, but whom you can still hear singing on the phonograph, was once a street urchin in Naples. Then he came to America. His name was Caruso.

The Italian language is the language of singing, the language of music. Some one has said you can’t help singing if you speak Italian. Even the sheet music we use in this country is usually written in Italian and the directions for playing are given in Italian. In Italian almost every word ends in a vowel, that is, in a, e, i, o, or u. Piano and ’cello, soprano and alto are Italian words. Even Naples ends in a vowel, for in Italian it is called Napoli.

The name “Goat” is neither pretty nor musical and it wouldn’t sound well in a song, but across the Bay of Naples is an island the name of which in English is goat; but in Italian it is “Capri,” and songs are sung about “Bella Capri”—the beautiful Capri—the beautiful Goat Island.

In the rocky shore of Capri there is a sea cave which you can only enter in a rowboat through a low opening. The opening is so low you have to duck your head, and if the waves are high you can’t go through at all. The cave is called the Blue Grotto, for inside this rocky cave the water is such a beautiful clear blue that it seems almost as if your boat were floating on sky instead of on water. What makes it so blue? If you dip some of the water up in a bottle to take home as a souvenir—as I have known people to do—the water is just as colorless as the water in your own bathtub.