CHAPTER VIII.
AN EXCURSION.
MANY a nice walk about the streets of Naples did our dear happy little couple take with Mamma and Papa, and into many a shop did they go, completely fascinated with the pretty goods displayed there. They longed to buy up everything they saw, and, if they had been allowed a larger portion of coin than Papa good-naturedly gave them each day, I don't know how many wonderful things they would have purchased.
They enjoyed the street scenes, too, as they walked along. The long-eared donkeys, which carried on either side of their short round backs such enormous and heavily loaded paniers that sometimes all you could see of the little animals were their slender legs, their long wagging ears, and their tails. But they didn't seem to mind their burdens at all, and plodded along thinking their own donkey thoughts, and no doubt wondering what Teddy and Polly were laughing at them for! And then there were the little shops where fruits were sold, and over the doorways of which were hanging great branches full of oranges and lemons, just as the boughs were broken from the trees (as we in our country, you know, like to break a bough hanging full of cherries from our cherry-trees).
It was wonderful to Polly and Teddy to see such a sight, and to see, as they had seen at their meals in the hotel, those large oval lemons and the golden round oranges served to the hotel guests on the stems, with the clustering leaves adorning them. (You don't see such things as those in New York, do you?)
Well, and then there were the beautiful gardens, rising one above the other in a bewildering mass of foliage of orange, lemon, and olive trees rich in fruit. Those gardens belonged to the wealthy class of Neapolitans, and their pretty dwelling-houses stood amongst the gardens on their terraces, overlooking the city like sentinels on the hills.
There were queer streets—side streets they were—which consisted only of a series of stone steps running straight up hill, like steps dug out of a steep cliff-side; and along the sides of those "step-streets," as Teddy called them, were little bits of houses and shops scooped out of the walls of the terraces and made comfortable, after a fashion, for those who lived in them, and who kept their tiny stores.
Polly and Teddy looked up at them as they passed, and noticed that the stone steps—from top to bottom—were swarming with children, men, and women, and nearly all of them, even the wee little people, carried baskets and various burdens as easily on their heads as in their hands; and the strange part was that some of those bundles, which were poised so safely on the heads, would have made a fair load for a horse, so large were they.
Another funny thing the little couple were greatly interested in was the sight of those peculiar decorations each horse, donkey, and cow, and even the oxen were wearing when in harness. It consisted of a long feather, as though from a rooster's tail, which was stuck securely over the animal's forehead, and waved and waggled to and fro as the animal walked along.