One needs only to walk along the streets, and keep one's eyes well open, and one is sure to see the most unequalled of scenes. At the Mole, one of the noisiest quarters of the city, I saw yesterday a Pulcinello, who on a temporary stage of planks was quarrelling with an ape, while from a balcony above a right pretty maiden was exposing her charms to every eye. Not far from the ape and his stage a quack doctor was recommending to the credulous crowd his nostrums for every evil. Such a scene painted by a Gerard Dow would not fail to charm contemporaries and posterity.
To-day, moreover, was the festival of S. Joseph. He is the patron of all Fritaruoli—that is, pastry-cooks, and understands baking in a very extensive sense. Because beneath the black and seething oil hot flames will, of course, rage,—therefore, every kind of torture by fire falls within his province. Accordingly, yesterday evening, being the eve of the Saint's day, the fronts of the houses were adorned with pictures, to the best of the inmates' skill, representing souls in Purgatory, or the Last Judgment, with plenty of fire and flame. Before the doors frying-pans were hissing on hastily-constructed hearths. One partner was working the dough, another shaped it into twists, and threw it into the boiling lard; a third stood by the frying-pan, holding a short skewer, with which he drew out the twists as soon as they were done, and shoved them off on another skewer to a fourth party, who offered them to the bystanders. The two last were generally young apprentices, and wore white curly wigs,—this head-dress being the Neapolitan symbol of an angel. Other figures besides completed the group; and these were busy in presenting wine to the busy cooks, or in drinking themselves, crying, and puffing the article all the while; the angels, too, and cooks were all clamouring. The people crowded to buy—for all pastry is sold cheap on this evening, and a part of the profits given to the poor.
Scenes of this kind may be witnessed without end. Thus fares it every day; always something new—some fresh absurdity. The variety of costume, too, that meets you in the streets; the multitude, too, of passages in the Toledo street alone!
Thus there is plenty of most original entertainment, if only one will live with the people; it is so natural, that one almost becomes natural oneself. For this is the original birth-place of Pulcinello, the true national mask—the Harlequin of Pergamo, and the Hanswurth of the Tyrol. This Pulcinello now is a thoroughly easy, sedate, somewhat indifferent, perhaps lazy, and yet humorous fellow. And so one meets everywhere with a "Kellner" and a "Hausknecht." With ours I had special fun yesterday, and yet there was nothing more than my sending him to fetch some paper and pens. A half misunderstanding, a little loitering, good humour and roguery, produced a most amusing scene, which might be very successfully brought out on any stage.
Naples, Tuesday, March 20, 1787.
The news that an eruption of lava had just commenced, which, taking the direction of Ottajano, was invisible at Naples, tempted me to visit Vesuvius for the third time. Scarcely had I jumped out of my cabriolet (zweirädrigen einpferdigen Fuhrwerk), at the foot of the mountain, when immediately appeared the two guides who had accompanied us on our previous ascent. I had no wish to do without either, but took one out of gratitude and custom, the other for reliance on his judgment,—and the two for the greater convenience. Having ascended the summit, the older guide remained with our cloaks and refreshment, while the younger followed me, and we boldly went straight towards a dense volume of smoke, which broke forth from the bottom of the funnel; then we quickly went downwards by the side of it, till at last, under the clear heaven, we distinctly saw the lava emitted from the rolling clouds of smoke.
We may hear an object spoken of a thousand times, but its peculiar features will never be caught till we see it with our own eyes. The stream of lava was small, not broader perhaps than ten feet, but the way in which it flowed down a gentle and tolerably smooth plain was remarkable. As it flowed along, it cooled both on the sides and on the surface, so that it formed a sort of canal, the bed of which was continually raised in consequence of the molten mass congealing oven beneath the fiery stream, which, with uniform action, precipitated right and left the scoria which were floating on its surface. In this way a regular dam was at length thrown up, in which the glowing stream flowed on as quietly as any mill-stream. We passed along the tolerably high dam, while the scoria rolled regularly off the sides at our feet. Some cracks in the canal afforded opportunity of looking at the living stream from below, and as it rushed onwards, we observed it from above.
A very bright sun made the glowing lava look dull; but a moderate steam rose from it into the pure air. I felt a great desire to go nearer to the point where it broke out from the mountain; there my guide averred, it at once formed vaults and roofs above itself, on which he had often stood. To see and experience this phenomenon, we again ascended the hill, in order to come from behind to this point. Fortunately at this moment the place was cleared by a pretty strong wind, but not entirely, for all round it the smoke eddied from a thousand crannies; and now at last we stood on the top of the solid roof, (which looked like a hardened mass of twisted dough), but which, however, projected so far outwards, that it was impossible to see the welling lava.
We ventured about twenty steps further, but the ground on which we stepped became hotter and hotter, while around us rolled an oppressive steam, which obscured and hid the sun; the guide, who was a few steps in advance of me, presently turned back, and seizing hold of me, hurried out of this Stygian exhalation.