Promised him a letter to Armour & Co., Chicago
"Free Fireworks.—A full hundred miles out at sea we could make out an irregular oval of fire suspended in the sky—the two streams of lava now trickling down Vesuvius. Finest landmark and sailing target a sailor could ask for. When we were forty miles away we wanted the captain to slow up for fear he would run into the mountain and injure it. Next morning in harbour we discovered that we were still ten miles away from it.
"The New Naples.—In ten years Naples has done a lot of sprucing up. Streets are cleaner, new and pretentious buildings have multiplied, smells have been eliminated. Guides, beggars and cabmen not so pestiferous as of yore, but still bad enough to deserve electrocution, provided some more lingering form of death could not be substituted. Cabmen seemed downcast. Municipality recently forbade any extra charge for cab service on a fiesta, or holiday. In Italy 300 days out of every 365 can be rung in under the head of fiestas. Every American who landed in Naples found himself right in the midst of a fiesta and had to pay two fares, or as much as thirty cents in gold, to ride around in one of the open hacks. Thirty cents would seem a reasonable charge, but not after you have seen the hack. The smaller the horse in Naples the heavier the harness. Evidently a desire to have about the same total weight in each case.
"Emigrants.—Alongside of our ship lay a German steamer about to sail for America. The tender made trips to and from the dock, and every time she came out she was filled to the last inch with Italian emigrants. We saw hundreds of them disappear into the ship, so many it seemed they must have been packed in below by hydraulic pressure, otherwise there wouldn't have been room for them. All headed for the land of the free to build railroads. Englishman wanted to know why there was such heavy emigrant traffic at this particular season. Told him they were hurrying over to vote at the April election in Chicago. He believed it. Come to think of it, I believe it myself."
This is Mr. Peasley's notebook up to the present moment, just as we are departing for Alexandria. He admits that he may have overlooked a few minor points of interest, but he more than made up by neglecting to mention Napoleon's tomb or the Moulin Rouge.
Since arriving in Naples this morning Mr. Peasley has arranged with the tourist agency to change his ticket, and he will accompany us to Egypt.