jai ne īstas of books before me, and wa

Ôi ruching the humor of Niques, we were per piaed & wiin vid de meuvant and unnecessECT

Of the port. Every thing seems to be designed as micey from the traveler, and deby him in his journey. The laundreds and the police seem to have entered in gamership to pillage the parses of £ vàr wish a car the city. We escaped, si length from the port page," and soon found ourselves in a crefrille hotel where the gentlemanly proprietor used every endeavor to render our visit agreeable.

Naples has about three hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, and is a very fine city. On approaching it from the sea, one would hardly imagine how many human beings are huddled together. The streets are narrow; the houses rise story on story, until they lose themselves from the view of the gazer, and both streets and houses are crowded with as miserable and dirty a class of beings as can be found in Italy. The lower order of Neapolitans are very meanly clad, and approach a step nearer barbarism than any I had

previously seen. The men wear a coarse crash shirt, with coarse trowsers, which are tied around the waist with a cord. An old straw hat completes the rig. The legs and feet, from the knees downward, the arms, from the elbows, and the shoulders, brown and sunburnt, are generally uncovered. As to shoes, they are a luxury or a superfluity which the poorer people seldom indulge in. The women dress correspondingly, and are seen moving through the streets singing, with loads upon their shoulders which would almost break the back of a donkey.

The better class, however, dress very neatly; and on gala days the crowded streets present a gay and brilliant spectacle. The soldiers in uniform, with waving plumes, and the young women, with their muslin scarfs, and gay, laughing features, give a showy appearance to the whole town.

I found a home for a few days at "Hotel de New York," my windows looking out upon the mountain and the bay. Hour after hour have I sat and gazed upon that fine sheet of water, terminated on the right by Cape Misenum, and on the left by Cape Minerva, and closed in and guarded by the Island of Capri, while a succession of hills sloping to its shores forms what the Neapolitans call the "water crater."

The city of Naples is twelve miles in circuit, with ample fortifications; three hundred churches; forty asylums for the poor and orphans; with a vast variety of objects connected with the past and the present, to interest the traveler, and make him feel that the sentiment of the Neapolitan enthusiast, who exclaims, "Vedi Napoli, e poi mori," is not altogether a vain boast, or a mistaken idea, as we shall find in a few succeeding chapters.

i

e same miei dint The acosta were f. f people and ove v wws, Cheung *t we mmated our way out an de owntry The fotking of the socasion brongis ci With the famona Itallan lazzamci who met us at every p, and can along after a sometimes for les This case of persons are a great some of annoyance to traudon. They rush out from the madside, men. women, and children, uttering the most pitecus cries. and hold up a tom hat or a filthy hand to receive the penny which you throw into it. Of all the speci mens of humanity I ever saw, these were the most miscrable. Deformed, crippled, bleeding, they were at once the most disgusting and pitiable creatures imaginable. Suffering and dying by the wayside, they cast imploring looks and utter imploring cries to every trav eler. No human heart can withstand the appeals made by these objects of destitution and want. But while many are really needy, the great mass are undeserving of charity. They are strong men and women, who might work if they were disposed, but prefer to practice imposition upon the stranger. They perform all

kinds of tricks to secure a little money, and are ready to steal at the most favorable opportunity. We saw blind beggars who could see if a piece of foreign money was given them; cripples who could run faster than our horses while there remained the least chance of their receiving a gift; dumb men who could curse you in two or three different languages if you refused to aid them.

Escaping from these, and riding by the palaces of the king, the theaters, and several noble buildings, we leave the city by the grotto of Posilippo, a road dug out under a mountain, half a mile long, one hundred and fifty feet high, and wide enough for three carriages to drive abreast. It was hewn out at an immense expense of time and labor, and was probably the work of slaves; perhaps of the early Christians, who, incurring the displeasure of the pagans, were sent here to toil and die on the public road. As we entered the grotto or tunnel, a hermit rushed out, an odd-looking, dehumanized being, who besought charity. We gave him a contemptuous look, and drove on.

Emerging from the grotto, we ride through a country which bears various marks of volcanic influence. Hills have been cast up rudely by the wayside, and mountains overhang which look as if they had recently been disgorged from the bowels of the earth. The ruins of houses which have been shaken down by eruptions appear along the way, broken aqueducts and baths, and all the evidences of spoiled art and ruined luxury. On the side of one of these volcanic hills we saw at work, hewing stone, a party of convicts, clad in thin blue clothes, with a chain passing from the waist to the foot. These convicts are not obliged to work. They receive pay for what they do five or six cents

a day. Those who are laborious and diligent are released, about one fourth of their time being remitted. Thus, if a man is sentenced for twelve years, he not only receives his wages, but is liberated at the expiration of nine years. A guard of soldiers were stationed over them, so as to render escape impossible.

After an hour's ride, we arrived at the ancient town of Puteoli, where Paul tarried seven days, when he was on his way to Rome. The old Bridge of Caligula, now in ruins, remains, and the pier at which Paul landed is pointed out. The path which led to the Appian Way, and that famous old road itself, are visible. I seemed to dream, to be so near scenes and places consecrated by their connection with the labors and sufferings of the great apostle to the Gentiles. The interest felt in palaces, cathedrals, and volcanoes died away when we arrived amid the memorials of the servant of Jesus.

Passing through Puteoli, we rode along the borders of Lake Avernus, surrounded by forests in which Strabo says the Cimmerians, a race of fortune-tellers, lived in caves never lighted by the rays of the sun. On the banks is the Temple of Apollo, where Eneas went to consult the sibyls and the gods; and the forest behind is that in which he found the golden branch. The lake is small, its noxious gases said to be fatal to the respiration of birds, and its depth eighty-five fathoms. It is a very respectable frog pond, and is more romantic in the lays of the old poets than in any reality.

We went down into Sibyls' Cave, which retreats from the shores of Averno, and enters the bowels of the mountain. Leaving the glorious sunlight, the clear air, and the beautiful scenes of nature, we took torches made of hemp, rosin, and tar, four feet long and two