Returning to Leghorn we embark for Naples by steamer. As we glide slowly into the lovely bay just as the morning light is breaking in the east, we feel that no more propitious hour for arrival could be devised, and are glad that the view of the city is presented to us for the first time from the sea rather than from the shore. How impressive is the historic scene which gradually spreads out before us as we steam slowly in by the islands of Procida and Cape Miseno, while we behold what an imaginative writer has termed "a fragment of heaven to earth vouchsafed"; it certainly seems more like a picture than like reality. Few cities on the globe are so famous for their advantageous site as is Naples. It lies in amphitheatre form on the shore of the classic bay, which is shut in from the sea by the island of Capri, extending in part across its entrance to the southeast, while to the northwest loom up the beautiful islands of Procida and Ischia, so full of sad and historic associations. It will be remembered that many of the population were engulfed at Ischia by an earthquake within a few years past. On the eastern side of this panoramic view rises Vesuvius, with its bold and isolated pinnacle, while its dusky sides are dotted up to within half the distance of the summit by villages, hamlets, villas, and vineyards, awaiting the destruction which it would seem must come sooner or later. Along the base of the volcano lie the towns of Portici, Annunziata, and Torre del Greco, everything glittering in the light of the rising sun. The eyes cannot rest upon a spot which has not its classic association, turn which way we will. In the distance eastward is seen Castellamare and Sorrento on the right curve of the crescent-shaped shore, while on the left lie Solfatara and Pozzuoli. What a shore to look upon, where Cicero, Horace, Virgil, Tasso, Pliny, and Macænas lived! How thrillingly beautiful it is, as we creep slowly up to our moorings in the soft, dewy freshness of the morning!
In direct contrast to all this beauty of nature and picturesqueness of scenery, as soon as we land there comes before our eyes so much of dirt, poverty, and beggary, as to cause us to shudder. How humanity outrages the loveliness of nature! Begging is reduced to a profession here; thousands of both sexes and of all ages have no other employment or seeming ambition than to beg at every opportunity, to fill their stomachs with food, and then, like the inferior animals, to stretch themselves in the sun until again aroused by hunger. There is no quarter of the city exempt from this pest of beggary. The palace and the hovel join each other in strange incongruity; starvation and abundance are close together; elegance and rags are in juxtaposition; the city has nearly half a million population, and this condition applies to all its streets. There are many fine public buildings, and yet they can lay no special claim to architectural excellence. The old streets are narrow, crooked, and in some places ascended by steps, on an angle of forty-five degrees; but the modern part of the city is well laid out. The Strada di Roma is the Broadway of Naples, a fine, busy street, more than a mile in length and lined with elegant business stores, cafés, hotels, and public offices. The famous Riviera di Chiaja, or Quay, is also a noble street running along the shore of the bay, lined on one side by an almost endless array of palaces, and on the other by the long park separating it from the sea.
This Chiaja is the famous drive-way of Naples, and is a broad and beautiful street by which we enter the city from the west. Just about sunset this thoroughfare presents daily a scene more peculiar and quite as gay as the Bois de Boulogne, or the Prater of Vienna, being crowded at that hour by the beauty and fashion of the town enjoying an afternoon drive or horseback ride. Here may be seen gigs driven by young Neapolitans in dashing style, and some smart brushes in the way of racing take place. The small Italian horses are real flyers, and are driven only too recklessly over the crowded course. Mingling with the throng are long lines of donkeys laden with merchandise, keeping close to the side of the way in order to avoid the fast drivers; pedestrians of both sexes dodging out and in among the vehicles; cavalry officers cantering on showy horses; and the inevitable army of beggars with outstretched hands pleading for alms, among whom is an occasional mendicant friar also soliciting a few pennies.
It is not alone the common classes who live so much in the streets. It is not alone the palace windows that are filled with spectators all along the drive-way of the Chiaja during the carnival hour of the day, but before each residence are gathered a domestic group sitting contentedly in the open air, bareheaded and in gauze-like costume. Some of the ladies employ their hands with dainty needlework, some are crocheting, others are engaged in simple domestic games, and all are chatting, laughing, and enjoying themselves heartily. The ladies wear the gayest colors, these adding vividness to the whole picture. To complete the strongly individualized scene, there are the graceful palms, orange-trees, and fountains of the park, amid abundant marble statuary, and flowering shrubs, with the sea, Capri, and Vesuvius for a background, which together make up the view of the Chiaja at twilight.
Naples is very peculiar in the aspect of its out-of-door life; we see the public letter-writer at his post in the open square; the common people are conducting most of their domestic affairs outside of their dwellings. Sellers of macaroni, oranges, grapes, fish, vegetables, flowers, and hawkers of every sort fill the air with their shrill cries. Common-looking men fling thin, greasy, tattered cloaks over their shoulders, with a proud air and inimitable grace; groups of half-clad children play in the dirt; whole families cook and eat in the street; while liveried turn-outs are dashing hither and thither. No matter in which direction one may go in or around the city, there looms up heavenward the sky-piercing summit of Vesuvius, shrouding the blue ether all day long with its slowly-rising column of smoke, and the sulphuric breathing of its unknown depths. The burning mountain is about three leagues from the city, but is so lofty as to seem closer at hand. It is quite solitary, rising in a majestic manner from the plain, but having a base thirty miles in circumference and a height of about four thousand feet. When emitting fire as well as smoke, the scene is brilliant indeed as a night picture, mirrored in the clear surface of the beautiful bay.
We find ourselves asking, What is the real life of Italy to-day? The sceptre of Commerce has passed from her; Venice is no longer the abode of merchant princes; Genoa is but the shadow of what she once was. What causes a foreign population to circulate through its cities, constantly on the wing, scattering gold right and left among her needy population? It is the rich, unique possession which she enjoys in her monuments of art, her museums, her libraries, her glorious picture-galleries, public and private, but all of which are freely thrown open to the traveller, and to all comers. The liberality of her nobles and merchant princes in the days of her great prosperity has left her now a resource which nothing can rob her of. Where could money purchase such attractions as crowd the museum of Naples? The marble groups and statues, mostly originals, number more than a thousand, including the Dying Gladiator, the famous group of Ganymede and the Eagle, and that of Bacchus and the Laocoön. Here also we have Psyche, Venus Callipyge,—this last dug up from Nero's golden home at Rome,—and hundreds of others of world-wide fame, and of which we have so many fine copies in America. Rome lies but a hundred and sixty miles north of Naples, and the "Eternal City" has largely contributed to the art treasures of the institution of which we are now speaking, and which secures to the city a floating population annually of several thousands.
A STREET IN POMPEII.
One of the greatest attractions of Naples is the partially exhumed city of Pompeii, three leagues more or less away. The drive thither skirts the Mediterranean shore, with its beautiful villas, private residences, convents, and churches, while the destructive mountain is always close at hand. The place in its present aspect is simply that of the remains of an entire city, destroyed and buried by volcanic action nearly two thousand years ago. The movable objects found here from time to time, as the slow work of excavation has progressed, have been removed to the museum at Naples. Quite enough, however, is left upon the spot to form tangible history, and to help the antiquarian to read the story of Pompeii, which was a populous city four or five centuries before the coming of Christ, and which lay entirely buried for some seventeen hundred years. It is about a century since the first effort was made towards uncovering the dwelling-houses, streets, and public edifices, but the progress which has been made clearly proves that the inhabitants were suffocated by a shower of hot ashes, and not destroyed by a sudden avalanche of lava and stones. The dwelling of Diomedes, who was the Crœsus of Pompeii, was the first house disentombed. Its owner was found with a key in one hand and a bag of gold in the other. Behind him was a slave with his arms full of silver vessels, evidently trying to escape from the coming devastation when they were suddenly overwhelmed, and must have been instantly suffocated.