The Voyages, Travels, and Experiences of Thomas Trotter.
CHAPTER XV.
Detention at Lipari.—Passage to Naples in a felucca.—Prospect of the Bay of Naples.—Novel sensations on landing in the city.—Strange appearances in the streets.—View of the city from the hill of St. Elmo.—Lively manners of the Neapolitans.
My readers left me at the island of Lipari, to which place I had been driven by a storm, while voyaging from Messina toward Naples. Our vessel was too much shattered by the gale to put to sea again, and I had the prospect of a long stay at this island, which was little agreeable to me. There was not much on the island that excited my curiosity; besides, I was in a hurry to get to Naples, where a thousand interesting and wonderful objects lay open to my observation. Very luckily for me, on the fourth day of my stay at the island, a felucca from Palermo touched there, and I was gratified by the information that she was bound from thence directly to Naples. I immediately struck a bargain for a passage in her.
The felucca was a vessel of about sixty tons, with two masts and lateen sails. We had a good wind, and on the morning of the second day, as I went on deck, I found we were close to the Italian shore, near the Bay of Naples. We steered between the island of Capri and the main land. Capri is a mountainous island, with steep, rocky shores, worn into arches and caverns by the surf. Little villages and country houses spotted the surface of it in different parts: and a lofty castle frowned over our heads as we sailed under the steep cliff that looks toward the continent. As we proceeded further, the wide bay of Naples opened in all its magnificent beauty upon us, and as we rounded the rocky promontory of Sorrento, Mount Vesuvius burst upon the view, sending forth a column of white smoke from its lofty summit, and lording it over the whole scene.
Hardly anything can surpass the beauty of this celebrated bay. We have no scenery in America of a class to compare with it. The novelty of the objects strikes the beholder no less than their beauty and grandeur. The great volcano rises proudly in a black-looking mass from the inner shore of the bay. The dark and rocky coast on one hand is dotted with white houses all along the water’s edge. On the opposite side, the great city of Naples rises in a pile of white walls from the water, with her castles, domes, and turrets. Three or four islands, of the most beautiful forms imaginable, lie about the mouth of the bay, and diversify the prospect in that quarter. Castles and palaces stud the water’s edge in every quarter, for here is no tide which leaves the strand bare, and the sea beats only in a gentle surf, which gives additional beauty to the scene along the shore. So enchanting is the whole prospect that it has given rise to a proverbial saying among the Italians, “See Naples, and then die.”
There were no large vessels under sail in the bay. A few fishing boats were plying their occupation near the shore, and some small craft were stretching across from Sorrento to the city. All the large shipping lay in the upper part of the bay, behind the mole. Here I found an immense collection of vessels, lying closely in rows, five or six deep, along the shore. There are no wharves. The shore is so bold that vessels may lie close to the land. I was surprised to find this enormous fleet all lying idle. They were stripped of their sails, and mostly bedecked with barnacles and sea-weed, as if they had long been out of occupation. In fact, there is very little commerce carried on by the Neapolitans. Their own ships lie rotting in the bay, while most of their maritime trade is carried on by French and English merchantmen. American vessels hardly ever touch at Naples, on account of the high port-charges.
When I got on shore it seemed to me that I was transported into the midst of Babel. Such a crowd of people, such noise, confusion, bawling, chattering, vociferating, and hurly-burly I never before witnessed in my life. I believe the world does not afford another such a scene as the streets of Naples. Everybody seems to be out of doors, and in constant talk, bustle, hurry and agitation. The streets are crowded with passengers; and the Toledo, which is the main street of the city, has all day long a crowd in it as dense, lively, and tumultuous as that of Boston mall on election day. It seemed almost to me that I had never been alive before, such exhilaration and excitement were produced by the novelty of the scene. People do not confine themselves to the side-walks, for there are none in the city; but crowd the whole breadth of the street: and all descriptions and classes of people mix up together, without any regard to the distinction of dress, gentility, or rank. Gentlemen, ladies, beggars, hawkers, pedlers, children, carriages, horsemen, donkeys, and herds of goats, are all jumbled up together in an ever-shifting confusion. It is more picturesque than any scene that was ever exhibited at a theatre. As often as a chaise or carriage comes along, the cry of “gard! gard!” causes the throng to open and let the vehicle pass. It was the greatest astonishment to me that a hundred people were not run over and killed, the first day that I took my walk through the streets; yet no fatal accident occurred within my observation.
Nothing makes a stronger contrast with our manners than the propensity of these people to keep out of doors. They seem to have no privacy, but do almost everything, in the way of business or amusement, in the streets.
The shopkeeper carries his goods into the street, and spreads them over the ground. The cobbler takes his seat outside the door, thumps his lapstone, and pulls away at his waxed-end, lifting his head at the passer-by, and inquiring, “any shoes to mend?” The confectioner and the baker have their little portable ovens in the street, and offer cakes and comfits piping hot. Cookery of all sorts is going on in the open air, and at every step you may smell the savory steam of the frying-pans, stew-pans, and griddles. The brokers and money-changers sit at their tables, tossing over heaps of silver coin. Old women squat down in the street to darn stockings and patch their gowns: others toddle about with a spindle and distaff, spinning flax. Countrymen, driving their donkeys, loaded with fruit and vegetables, cry their articles for sale: everybody has something to say, and the jargon, clatter and tumult can never be adequately conceived except by an actual witness.
The Toledo is about as wide as Washington street, in Boston; but most of the others are very narrow. The houses are seven, eight, and nine stories high. Generally every story is occupied by a separate family. Those who live in the upper stories do not take the trouble to go down if they wish to buy anything that is passing in the street, but lower a basket from the window. In looking through a street, you may see, in the forenoon, sometimes, fifty or a hundred of these baskets at a time, dangling in the air. The houses are built of a coarse, soft stone, and covered with a white plastering. Many of them are painted to resemble brick, which is a more costly and durable material here than the common building stone.
A steep and lofty hill rises immediately back of the city, on the top of which stands an old castle. I climbed to the top of the hill by a zig-zag road furnished with stone steps. From this spot I had a most enchanting view of the city and bay. Innumerable domes, covered with glazed tiles of variegated color, sparkled in the bright sun; and the blue waters of the bay spread beautifully out beyond, bounded by the majestic pile of Vesuvius, and the romantic shores of Sorrento. But what struck me as the most novel, was the remarkable hum of the city. It was not the ordinary clatter and roar of carriage wheels, but the audible murmur of three hundred thousand human voices, which broke on my ear in a continuous roll, like the moan of the distant ocean. The city is like a great bee-hive where the inhabitants keep up a constant hum.
To describe the amusements, the lively and comical manners of the Neapolitans, which render the streets of the city a perpetual fair and spectacle, night and day, would require a volume. The ordinary manners of the people, when engaged in the common transactions of life, are full of action, grimace, and theatrical flourish. Two fellows, making a bargain, will chatter, bawl, exclaim, sputter, roll up their eyes, shrug their shoulders, flourish their arms, stamp their feet, cut capers, and practise the most extravagant grimaces; you would think they were going to claw each other’s eyes out; yet they are only higgling about the value of a sixpence. If you ask the price of an article, in the street, you will be told that it is five dollars; but there will be no difficulty in beating it down to half a dollar. They think it not at all disreputable to impose on a stranger, and make him pay ten times the value of a thing. When they are reproached with these transactions, they smile in your face, and ask you how you can expect a poor man to be honest!
The following story is extracted from a little book entitled “Moral Tales, by Robert Merry,” and published by John S. Taylor & Co., New York.