SAN MICHELE.

Forest and Bird, Issue 26, 1 March 1932, Page 10

SAN MICHELE.

(The following is an extract from that noted publication. San Michele, by Axel Munthe.)

[San Michele is the author’s home on Capri, a beautiful island off the Bay of Naples and a famous resting-place for migratory birds. Axel Munthe is a noted medical specialist of Rome.]

The birds! The birds! How much happier would not my life on the beautiful island have been had I not loved them as I do! I loved to see them come every spring in thousands and thousands, it was a joy to my ear to hear them sing in the garden of San Michele. But there came a time when I almost wished that they had not come, when I wished I could have signalled to them far out on the sea to fly on, fly on with the flock of wild geese high overhead, straight to my own country far in the North where they would be safe from man. For I knew that the fair island that was a paradise to me was a hell to them, like that other hell that awaited them further on on their Via Crucis *, Heligoland. They came just before sunrise. All they asked for was to rest for a while after their long flight across the Mediter-

* Cross way.

ranean; the goal of the journey was so far away, the land where they were born and where they were to raise their young'. They came in thousands: wood-pigeons, thrushes, turtle-doves, waders, quails, golden orioles, skylarks, nightingales, wagtails, chaffinches, swallows, warblers, redbreasts, and many other tiny artists on their way to give spring concerts to the silent forests and fields in the north. A couple of hours later they fluttered helplessly in the nets the cunning of man had stretched all over the island from the cliffs by the sea high up to the slopes of Monte Solaro and Monte Barbarossa. In the evening they were packed by hundreds in small wooden boxes, without food and water, and despatched by steamers to Marseilles to be eaten with delight in the smart restaurants of Paris. It was a lucrative trade, Capri was for centuries the seat of a bishop entirely financed by the sale of the netted birds. “II vcscovo delle quaglie.”* he was called in Rome. Do you know how they are caught in the nets? Hidden under the thickets, between the poles, are caged decoy birds, who repeat incessantly, automatically, their monotonous call. They cannot stop, they go on calling out night and day till they die. Long before science knew anything about the localisation of the various nerve-centres in the human brain, the devil had revealed to his disciple man his ghastly discovery that by stinging out the eyes of a bird with a red-hot needle the bird would sing automatically. It is an old story, it was already known to the Greeks and the Romans, it is still done to-day ail along the southern shores of Spain, Italyf and Greece. Only a few birds in a hundred survive the operation, still it is good business, a blinded quail is worth twenty-five lire in Capri to-dav. During six weeks of the spring and six weeks of the autumn, tlie whole slope of Monte Barbarossa was covered with nets from the ruined castle on the top down to the garden wall of San Michele at the foot of the mountain. It was considered the best caccia\ on the whole island—as often as not over a thousand birds were netted there in a single day. The mountain was owned by a man from the mainland, an ex-butcher, a famous specialist in the blinding of birds, my only enemy in Anacapri** except the doctor. Ever since I had begun building San Michele the war between him and me had been going on incessantly. I had appealed to the Prefect of Naples, I had appealed to the Government in Rome, I had been told there was nothing to be done, the mountain was his, the law was on his side. I had obtained an audience from the highest Lady in the land, she had smiled at me with her enchanting smile that had won her the heart of the whole of Italy, she had honoured me with an invitation to remain for luncheon; the first word I had read on the menu had been

* The quail bishop. t Now forbidden by law since Mussolini came into power. + Hunting-place. ** Chief town on Capri.

“Pdte d’alouettes farcies ”* I had appealed to the Pope and had been told by a fat cardinal that the Holy Father had been carried down in his portantinaf that very morning at daybreak to the Vatican gardens to watch the netting of the birds, the caccia\ had been good, over two hundred birds had been caught. I had scraped off the rust from the little two-pounder the English had abandoned in the garden in 1808, and started firing off a shot every five minutes from midnight till sunrise in the hope of frightening away the birds from the fatal mountain. The exbutcher had sued me for interfering with the lawful exercise of his trade, I had been fined two hundred lire damages. I had trained all the dogs to bark the whole night at the cost of what little sleep remained for me. A few days later my big Maremma dog died suddenly. I found traces of arsenic in his stomach. I caught sight of the murderer the next night lurking behind the garden wall and knocked him down. He sued me again. I was fined five hundred lire for assault. I had sold my beautiful Greek vase and my beloved Madonna by Desiderio di Settignano in order to raise the enormous sum he had asked for the mountain, several hundred times its value. When I came with the money, he renewed his old tactics and grinned at me that the price had been doubled. He knew his man. My exasperation had reached a point when I might have parted with everything I possessed to become the owner of the mountain. The bird slaughter went on as before. I had lost my sleep, I could think of nothing else. In my despair I fled from San Michele and sailed for Monte Cristo, to return when the last birds had passed over the island.

The first thing I heard when I came back was that the exbutcher was lying on the point of death. Masses were read for his salvation twice a day in the church at thirty lire apiece—he was one of the richest men in the village. Towards eveningarrived the parroco% asking me in the name of Christ to visit the dying man. The village doctor suspected pneumonia, the chemist was sure it was a stroke, the barber thought it was un colpo di sanguell ; the midwife thought it was una paura** The parroco himself, always on the look out for the evil eye, inclined towards the maVocchio. f f I refused to go. I said I had never been a doctor in Capri except for the poor, and that the resident physicians on the island were quite capable of coping with any of these ailments. Only on one condition would I come, that the man would swear on the crucifix that if he pulled through he would never again sting out. the eyes of a bird and that he would sell me the mountain at his exorbitant price of a month ago. The man refused. In the night he was given the Last Sacrament . At day-

* Swallow-pie. t Sedan chair. t Catch.

§ Priest. || Blood pressure.

** Fear. ft Evil eye

break the parroco appeared again. My offer had been accepted, he had sworn on the crucifix. Two hours later I tapped a pint of pus from his left pleura* to the consternation of the village doctor and to the glory of the village saint, for, contrary to my expectations, the man recovered. Miracolo! Miracolo!\ The mountain of Barbarossa is now a bird sanctuary. Thousands of tired birds of passage are resting on its slopes every spring and autumn, safe from man and beast. The dogs of San Michele are forbidden to bark while the birds are resting on the mountain. The cats are never let out of the kitchen except with a little alarm-bell tied round their necks; Billy the vagabond is shut up in the monkey-house, one never knows what a monkey or a school-boy is up to. So far I have never said a word to belittle the last miracle of Sant’Antonio, which at a low estimate saved for many years the lives of at least fifteen thousand birds a year. But when all is over for me, I mean just to whisper to the nearest angel that, with all due respect to Sant’Antonio, it was I and not he who tapped the pus out of the butcher’s left pleura, and to implore the angel to put in a kind word for me if nobody else will. I am sure Almighty God loves the birds or He would not have given them the same pair of wings as He has given to His own angels.

* Lung.

t Miracle.