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ADVENTURES AND MISADVENTURES.--A WET GROTTO AND A BOILING LAKE.--THE TWO FAIR SPANIARDS, AND THE DONKEY RIDE.
The Grotto of Posilippo is a most remarkable place, and, in the opinion of every intelligent traveller, is more astonishing than even the Hoosac Tunnel, which nobody will deny except the benighted Bostonian.
The city of Pozzuoli is celebrated for two things; first, because St. Paul once landed there, and no doubt hurried away as fast as he could; and, secondly, on account of the immense number of beggars that throng around the unhappy one who enters its streets.
The Dodge Club contributed liberally. The Doctor gave a cork-screw; the Senator, a bladeless knife; Dick, an old lottery ticket; Buttons, a candle-stump; Mr. Figgs, a wild-cat banknote. After which they all hurried away on donkeys as fast as possible.
The donkey is in his glory here. Nowhere else does he develop such a variety of forms--nowhere attain such an infinity of sizes--nowhere emit so impressive a bray. It is the Bray of Naples. "It is like the thunder of the night when the cloud bursts o'er Cona, and a thousand ghosts shriek at once in the hollow wind."
There is a locality in this region which the ancient named after a certain warm region which no reined person ever permits himself to mention in our day. Whatever it may have been when some Roman Tityrus walked pipe in mouth along its shore, its present condition renders its name singularly appropriate and felicitous. Here the party amused themselves with a lunch of figs and oranges, which they gathered indiscriminately from orchards and gardens on the road-side.
There was the Lake Lucrine. Averno and the Elysian Fields were there. The ruins of Caligula's Bridge dotted the surface of the sea. Yet the charms of all these classic scenes were eclipsed in the tourists' eyes by those of a number of pretty peasants girls who stood washing clothes in the limpid waters of the lake.
It was in this neighborhood that they found the Grotto of the Cumaean Sibyl. They followed the intelligent cicerone, armed with torches, into a gloomy tunnel. The intelligent cicerone walked before them with the air of one who had something to show. Seven stoat peasants followed after. The cavern was as dark as possible, and extended apparently for an endless distance.
After walking a distance of about two miles, according to the Senator's calculation, they came to the centre of interest. It was a hole in the wall of the tunnel. The Americans were given to understand that they must enter here.