ing or seated round the table; everybody is
quiet, all the noise you hear is the declaring of
the winning number and the clinking of the



" Trip to the Sunny South." 25

money as it is raked in or shovelled out. The
players consist of all classes, young and old
of all nations, from gay and licentious to the
blue stocking of the dorcas meeting a large
proportion are women staking from 5 francs to
1000 francs and more. The business is profit-
able to the proprietors of the tables, keeps Prince
Grimaldi a prince, and pays all the taxes in the
town.

The principal object of our journey to the
" Sunny South " was health, to be best acquired
.by rest and sea breezes. It was now time to
take ship.

I had not an opportunity of shooting any
brigands while in Italy, because at Vintemille,
they took charge of a very nice six-shooter lent
me by my friend, Jupiter. It happened just on
the Italian frontier. If you wish to carry a
pistol it must be a foot long, and you must carry
it in a belt around the waist. My companion was
wrath to see these friendly Italians rudely des-
troying some choice plants and roots he had so
carefully collected at Mentone, saying, "not
possibul, coller ha," being afraid of having
cholera thus imported into Italy.

From Genoa we took berths by the Florio



26 " Trip to the Sunny South."

Rubittino steamer " Asia." Having twelve hours
to wait at Leghorn we landed and went to Pisa
to see the leaning tower, the cathedral, and
baptistry a quiet, clean old town, its greatness
is recorded in ancient history. The only notice-
able feature about Leghorn is its fine harbour.

Two more days' delightful sailing along the
coast, passing the small barren island of Elba,
where the first Napoleon was banished to for a
time. Nearing the bay of Naples, the first land
sighted is the island of Ischia, where 2000 people
lost their lives in 1883 by an earthquake. It was
evening when we sighted Vesuvius, about twenty-
five miles away, a red glare of fire issuing from
its summit. As we entered the bay, Naples
looked as if it was illuminated, the rows of gas
lights so regular in line above each other ; the
night was fine and clear, and the scene enchant-
ing. We were^too late that night to be cleared
by the Customs, so slept on board. Early in the
morning we were awakened by the cries of
human voices belonging to the Neapolitan boat-
men waiting for their prey. Before breakfast
we went on deck to have a morning view of the
bay of Naples. It was fine, the sun was up.
The bay looks like an inland sea of twenty miles



" Trip to the Sunny South." 27

in width. The islands of Capri and Ischia stand
at the opening of the bay, and so close up the
view to the open sea The bold outline of the
mountains, the towns and villages can be seen
here and there on some elevated spot, the atmos-
phere being so fine, and the sea glistening placid
and clear. To the south of the bay stands
Vesuvius, steaming and smoking, throwing up its
vapours to the sky, by night a bright red glare ;
at the crown of the bay stands the far-famed
Naples, with its many-tinted houses piled one
above another up the hill that skirts the bay,
crowned by the colossal castle of Elmo. The
curve of the bay is broken in the centre by a
small mole, on which stands the ruined-looking
castle Dell Ova and the Palace Royal, and
further north, on the rising ground stands
modern Naples, laid out with fine hotels, villas,
and gardens.

We left the steamer here to take another
when we wished to proceed further South.
Here, as in all the Mediterranean ports, we were
anchored in the bay ; hundreds of boats were
clustered around our steamer, and a ragged,
noisy lot they were. We landed, were searched
and counter searched before we were clear, and



28 " Trip to the Sunny South."

able to drive to our hotel. Naples is a place we
have heard much of, writers have painted it in
words and artists in oil they say, " see Naples
and then die." If you happened to be a nervous
man or troubled with heart disease, you would
soon die. I have been in Scotland Road Market
on Saturday night, I have been on London
Bridge, the greatest thoroughfare in the world,
but in the Toledo, the Strada del Mola, and the
Strada del Piliera, you will hear noises far
greater in volume and variety than in London.
I think it must be the language that helps them
on, every word appears to end with a ee, oo, ii ;
they whistle, they shout, rush and jostle you
about, and as the streets are narrow you have to
look after yourself or be run over. The sense
of smell will have a feast, with a few new speci-
mens which permeate the air on every side ;
outdoor cooking arrangements, vegetables, and
other mystic messes simmering and spluttering
in fat or oil. Their sanitary arrangements are
worse than in Paris, and their sense of decency
is less shameless.

Naples like Genoa, in the old portion of the
town, is so closely huddled together, and the
streets are so steep and narrow, that no vehicles



" Trip to the Sunny South." 29

"s.

can pass up. They are generally so littered up
with baskets and hampers that foot passengers
have a difficulty in threading their way. The
shoemaker brings his bench outside, and plys
his trade in the open street ; the tailor with his
clumsy-looking sewing machine, and his dirty-
looking apprentice, are likewise busy on the
parapet. The houses are eight or nine stories
high with balconies, and washing on each
storey. On a bright day the streets look dark
because no sun can penetrate them, and the sky
is hidden by the various projecting obstructions.
If you look into a shop window, some miserable-
looking fellow will ask you to go in and purchase.
If you do so he will ask for commission from the
buyer, you may be sure he will try and do his
best with the seller. If you go into a shop and
price a certain article, they fix a price they never
expect to get ; you say it is too dear, they im-
mediately ask, How much will you give ? and if
needs be will take one-half or one-third what was
first asked. There is no very marked difference
between a Neapolitan and an Englishman. They
appear to be of the same family as our English
gipsy, dusky, with dark hair and eyes. Their
dress, hat, and coat are much the same as our



30 " Trip to the Sunny South."

fashion, but still there is a difference ; perhaps the
pockets are fixed horizontally instead of perpen-
dicular, or the buttons are different ; their boots
are more namby-pamby, in contrast with those
the writer wore there must be something. We
were marked at once as Englishmen. The cab-
man would get his eye upon us, chase us about,
back his horse across our path, and try and
cajole us into his car; once in, he would be sure
to try and take you to some place four times the
distance you wished to go.

The Italians are true lovers of art, and some-
times carry it to a ridiculous degree. It bespeaks
a man's taste if he has the goddess of dancing
or music painted on his house, but to see the
same figures on a stone cart, or bouquets of
flowers on a manure cart, we certainly think too,
too aesthetic.

One of the many things that struck me in the
streets of Naples were the vehicles, and more
especially the harness. The horses draw from
the breast, and therefore wear no collar ; the
harness, which is very ornamental in shape, is
covered with brass, tassels, &c. They don't
groom their horses and mules, but clean their
brass very carefully. They yoke a horse and



" Trip to the Sunny South" 31

donkey together, a donkey and an ox, a donkey
and mule, or three donkeys and a mule. One
day I observed a horse, an ox, and a donkey
drawing a cart of stones, all with bells clanging.

In some few things they are in advance of us,
for instance, we don't have a cow driven to our
door, and see our quart of milk drawn, as we did
in the Via Roma, the Regent Street of Naples.
You may have goat's milk if you like that better.

The outskirts of Naples are pretty undulating,
you can never for long lose sight of the bay or
Vesuvius. By a drive of three or four miles to
the west, along the bay, you get a fairly good
view of Naples, embracing Pompeii and Hercu-
laneum nestling insecurely at the foot of Vesu-
vius, but not equal to the one as you enter the
bay.

We were told the churches were not so
gorgeous and rich as those of Genoa, Pisa, or
Rome, so we did not visit them. The only
public building of great interest is the Museum
of Ancient Sculpture and Paintings ; it is large
and well appointed, and contains more than any
other public building in Italy. I never was an
enthusiast of sculpture until now, but it was
quite plain to see that the magnificent ideas



32 " Trip to the Sunny South."

arose from the old heathen worship. The gods

^
as herqs of strength ; the Farnese Hercules

slaying the bull ; the Gladiators achieving won-
derful feats of their scientific skill ; Bacchus at
his feasts ; Adonis wooing Venus ; Venus in her
various graceful attitudes; Bacchus in his youth-
ful revelry; Silenus, the fat jolly old man; the
Dancing Graces, the Apollos, the Jupiters, the
colossal figures of horses and lions, hundreds of
Roman senators, statues in white marble draped
in black or coloured marble ; statues buried for
a thousand years, some sadly mutilated and
placed in position ; ancient inscriptions, Mosaic
work of wonderful effect, galleries of pictures
of immense canvas, huge libraries, rooms full
of papyri, coins, antique jewellery, bronzes,
crystals, and cameos. We spent some time in
inspecting these, but we should have had a
week, or even a month.





POMPEII.

P ."7 "~~~\ '. t\

HE base of Mount Vesuvius is about
four miles from Naples. In going to
Pompeii you skirt the coast, having
the burning mountain on the left. Pompeii lies
four miles further on the margin of the bay, so
that if another great eruption was to take place,
with an east wind, Naples might stand in the
same danger as Pompeii; still they build houses
and villages and grow grapes up the mountain
side. One village has been destroyed no less
than eight times. We did not go to see the
crater, the day we had to spare was not bright
and clear, and the fatigue more than two invalids
cared to undertake. But we went to Pompeii.
Within a few minutes from leaving the railway
station you reach a kind of hotel and lodge, buy
permission tickets, and take a guide. You enter
by an arched gateway, something like the ancient
gates of Chester. The streets are about as broad
and steep as Watergate. Pompeii is about equal



34 " Trip to the Sunny South:'

in area to the ancient City of Chester. As you
enter the gates you can see the deep ruts of the
two chariot wheels worn fully six inches into the
solid blocks of stone pavement. Their streets,
which are straight and narrow, strike each
other at right angles, with a narrow parapet on
each side. The houses are of one storey, exter-
nally very plain no projections or balconies, but
a simple doorway. You have to cross the thres-
hold of the houses to peer into the mode of life
of these Pompeians, who were suddenly swept
out of existence on the agth November, A.D. 79.
Bulwer Lytton has written a work on the sup-
posed customs and habits of these people. It
would take a book to describe your reflections on
this " City of the Dead." It has not the appear-
ance of a city destroyed by fire ; all that has
disappeared are the roofs, the doors, the people,
and the furniture. The walls and plaster for the
most part are perfect, the fountains and statues
are there, the Mosaic floors are bright and clean,
and the fresco painting as bright as when it was
done. It seems strange that none of the present
habitations of the Italians resemble those of the
ancients, so vastly different to the tall stuccoed
houses of Naples one storey houses with an



" Trip to the Sunny South." 35

entrance hall, and an open courtyard with large
and small chambers entering from a piazza that
skirted the buildings. Some of the richer houses
have an inner courtyard with a garden in the
centre, and different offices leading from it ;
while others have engraved on stone the name
of the owner. The Forum, or principal open
square, seems to have suffered most ; broken
pillars and Corinthian columns are scattered
about the halls of justice and the judge's vacant
seat; the dungeon where two prisoners, fettered,
were discovered a few years ago in a state of
petrefaction they had been left to their fate
on that fearful night. There are many public
buildings around the Forum, and the Latin
tablets referring to the business carried on in
them ; the steps that time and bustle and
business had worn ; the Pagan temples with
their tables of sacrifice, are still to be seen.
Then there are the theatres the day theatre
open to the sky, and the night theatre covered.
The tickets of admission were rather peculiar,
for instance, the musicians' had a lyre, those
for the upper galleries a pigeon, and free
tickets a skull all were carved ivory tokens. At
the outskirts of the town is the amphitheatre,



36 " Trip to the Sunny South."

which held 30,000 people, where senators used
to harangue their constituents and gladiators
fought their deadly fights, where prisoners were
brought from their cells to fight with and to
be torn to pieces by hungry wild beasts.
They have the street of Fortune and the street
of Merchants. You see the wine shop display-
ing its sign, an earthenware jar, and inside
you see the same seats, the same wine jars,
empty and desolate. The habitues are not
there discussing the topics of the day or revell-
ing with the fulness of the wine cup ; they
are gone eighteen centuries ago. There is
the apothecary's shop with its sign the
twisted serpent, and bakeries with deep brick
ovens. In some respects fashions have not
altered much, in a baker's oven were found black
charred loaves with the baker's name stamped on
them, the same squat shape as you see carried
about the streets of Naples to-day, and known in
England as cottage loaves ; from the same oven
they shew you a young sucking pig, petrified to
stone, that was there cooking for some one's
supper, in their hurry and confusion they left this
dainty morsel behind. When a workman was one
day using a pick he struck something hollow, it



" Trip to the Sunny South." 37

was found when examined to be in shape like a
human body. Several of these hollow shells
were afterwards exhumed, for safety and pre-
servation they were filled with liquid plaster of
paris. The fine ashes and the moisture of the
body together formed this human shell a man
in the act of running, with a key in one
hand and some money in another. There is
a beautifully formed girl of seventeen, her face
turned a little on one side, with sweet innocent
features clearly defined, with her hair dressed
with girlish coquetry ; a boy of twelve has fallen
on his face, and there he lay. There was the
body of a dog found with a collar round its neck
in the vestibule of a house ; the poor dog must
have died hard, it has rolled over in its agony,
and lies on its back with its mouth open, its
limbs violently contorted, and the whole frame
twisted and wrenched in a manner to denote
severe pain. There was a girl found, with a
golden clasp brooch bearing the name of Julia
Diamede, said to be the daughter of one of the
rich men of the city, whose house gives an idea
of his wealth from its costly fittings discovered.
These wonderful relics are shewn you in a small
museum erected in Pompeii. You see the baths



38 " Trif) to the Sunny South."

with the niches and seats for undressing, with
nails to hang up their clothes ; you are shewn
the so-called Turkish bath, but what was really

J

the ancient Roman bath, with its small stone
seats upon which to sit while waiting for the hot
air to induce perspiration.

There is abundance of proof that the people
of Pompeii were steeped in degradation and vice,
for the frescos and inscriptions were such that
they have been moved from the view of women
and children.

In the Museum Nationale, Naples, they have
a Pompeii section; it contains almost everything
you would find in a broker's shop pots, pans,
fish hooks, money chests, candelabras, buckets,
handsome cloak clasps (same as lately worn, and
now produced in Birmingham by the gross),
cooking stoves, braziers, charred walnuts, barley,
olives with the drop of oil caused by the heat to
stand out, a glass bottle of oil, eggs, onions, dates,
pears, tortoises, corks, portion of a woman's dress
finely woven like merino, hinges, locks, taps, a
circulating hot-water boiler with brass tap, a
cooking apparatus similar to the French Bain
Marie pan of the present day, leaden pipes,
scales and weights, the metal pen supposed to



" Trip to the Sunny South. 1 ' 39

have been a modern English invention, the safety
pin, which is now so largely made in Birming-
ham for use in the nursery ; a banker's paper,
receipts for money, a mass of copy in papyrus,
legends, treaties, forceps, lances, probes, specu-
lum and different doctor's instruments, medicine
phials, dice, and hundreds of articles supposed
to be newly invented, and sold nowadays as
novelties. The cameos and intaglios are of such
rich and exquisite work that our modern lapi-
daries cannot equal them.





ROME.

you roll into the big railway station,
and hear the sonorious voice of the
railway porter pronounce Roma,
there is an inward feeling of reverence and pride
that you have reached Rome " The Eternal
City." It was late in the evening when we
arrived, and so we took up our quarters at the
Hotel Continental, a large and modern hotel,
situated on a high part of the town one of the
seven hills and where malaria is not likely to
find its way.

There is a Mr. Forbes resident in Rome, who
conducts and lectures to parties on the spot, at
points of interest ; he takes a week to do the
city.

As we had only two or three days to stay
we had a guide of our own. When I bought
a pair of easy boots for walking, my com-
panion enquired what commission he would
get ; this gave him great offence, he said he



" Trip to the Sunny South." 41

was a gentleman, a rich man proud men are
these Romans. In driving through the streets
of Rome, there appears to be nothing of a very
remarkable character. You require to know its
brilliant history, and the deeds of its patriots and
rulers You may lazily climb up the hill leading
to the Forum, but if you are interrupted and told
that on this spot Caesar was murdered, or on
that spot his friend Anthony delivered his oration,
you are impressed. You require to live a few
days in Rome to get through the preface of the
story of its eventful history. This history should
be divided into three eras Ancient Rome, the
time of its supreme greatness ; Old Rome, or
the middle ages and the supremacy of the Popes ;
and New Rome, since the entry of Garibaldi.
I intend to say little about this wonderful place ;
I am unable to do so, as it is too classical, I
will only give just a rough and crude idea of
what attracted my attention.

There is not a great deal of Ancient Rome
left the old buildings appear to have been
knocked down, levelled up, and new and mean
streets built over the top. In the dark ages they
seem to have had no regard to the grandeur of
Ancient Rome, they buried up the massive



42 " Trip to the Sunny South."

columns and statuary, and built up the present
New Rome over them, so that many ot the
places laid bare are ten or twelve feet below the
present street level, especially in the neighbour-
hood of the Forum of Trajan and the Pantheon,
and whenever they are re-building in this part
of the city they come across some old relic or
other. We visited the Roman Forum, the
Triumphial Arch of Titus, the Arch of Constan-
tine, the remains of the great Colosseum that
once seated 90,000 Romans, and the Temple of
Castor and Pollux. We crossed the Tiber by
Adrian's Bridge, built A.D. 136, to the Castle of
St. Angelo, now so called, but really the Tomb
of Trajan. The Tiber is a muddy, sleepy-looking
river, with about the same volume of water as
the Dee, at Chester, or scarcely as much.

The Pantheon, once a Pagan temple but now
a church, is the only ancient building left in a
state fit for use ; its walls are of brick twenty
feet thick, with an opening in centre of dome,
as the only means of lighting the interior.
It contains the tomb of the late King Victor
Emmanuel, and other memorials, including one
to Canova, the sculptor, and is used also as a
chapel. All the other remains are in a dis-



" Trip to the Sunny South." 43

mantled, ruined state, every thing that was
costly has disappeared.

The Colosseum for centuries was used as a
stone quarry. When foundation and other stones
were wanted for a new church they were there
ready for the builder ; and in like manner the
columns and slabs of marble that had been
brought from Greece and many parts of the
earth, for the public buildings, are now in St.
Peter's, St. Paul's, St. John's, and the other
churches in Rome. I cannot attempt to describe
St. Peter's, except that it is considered the
largest, grandest, and most costly building in the
world taking twenty million francs to pay for it
and will hold 45,000 people. It took 300 years
to complete, and although finished 300 years
ago, it looks as bright and clean as if it had
been perpetually under a glass shade and
sponged down every morning. Every proportion
about it is gigantic there is nothing small or
paltry that would assist you in realising its
immensity. You see a figure inside the church,
it looks life size, but go up to it and you will
find it twenty or thirty feet high.

St. Peter's contains no oil paintings, as in
most churches. The Ascension, by Raphael,



44 " Trip to the Sunny South."

and all the other pictures of like size are of
Mosaic, prepared and executed in the Vatican ;
each picture is made up of thirteen millions of
small fragments of tinted Mosaics, and it takes
an artist thirty years to complete one. The ashes
of St. Peter are, or are said to be, here, under a
bronze canopy, beneath the centre of the great
dome this canopy is 96 feet high, and is of solid
bronze, taken from the Pantheon 270 years ago
the Cross of Christ, from Calvary ; the hand-
kerchief with the print of His face still visible ;
the spear the Roman soldier pierced His side
with. This soldier, we were told, happened to
have a blind eye, on which a drop of blood fell
from the point of the spear, and instantly
restored that orb. He was made a saint, and
his effigy now stands fifty feet high under the
great dome. We listened with wonder and
amazement and tried to believe. It was Satur-
day, and the church was nearly empty, excepting
a few hundreds of priests, and a beggar-like
looking woman with her shoeless, ragged child-
ren ; she dragged these children through this
pile of grandeur with open mouths and eyes,
perhaps wondering if heaven could be grander
than this.



" Trip to the Sunny South." 45

Rome is built on seven hills the Pincian
Quirinale, the Capitol, and Mount Palatine.
From the Pincian Hill the Hill of Gardens
you get the best view of the Old City, the Corsa,
and the River. From Mount Palatine you get
the best view of the Ruins of Ancient Rome, the
Forum, the Colosseum, the different Temples
and Arches, the Capitol, while, turning your
face, the view is very fine the Campana stretch-
ing twenty miles crossed by the Appian way,
and the great acqueducts, now partially broken
down, that carried the waters from the distant
mountains of Albany, twenty-five miles away ;
across the plain are mounds of stone, very faint
traces of the days of Titus, when Rome is sup-
posed to have had a population of three-and-a-
half millions, while a few hundred years later it
had scarcely twenty thousand. The fountains
are, perhaps, one of the wonders of the city.
Hundreds of thousands gallons of water gush
out in the gardens of Mount Palatine, it comes
out again at the Capitol, again at the Quirinale,
and again in a lower part of the city. There is
perhaps no city in the world with such an abun-
dant water supply, so beautifully dispersed by
magnificent fountains. We saw King Humbert,



46 " Trip to the Sunny South."

on his birthday, driving out in the Park of the
Villa Borgese; we saw the Via Nationale of New
Rome, illuminated in Parisian style. We strolled
down the Corsa, with its well-stocked shops. In
the Cafe de Roma you will get a mid-day meal
equal to any in Europe if you like Italian cook-