A Year in Europe

by Walter W. Moore

He decorates her tawny brow with shells,

Retires a space to see how fair she looks,

Then proud runs up to kiss her."

PANORAMA OF NAPLES.

Street Scenes in Naples.

The contrast between the heavenly scenery of this bay and that awful volcano, which stands over it like an ever-present threat of destruction, reminds one of the cherubim which stood at the gate of Eden to guarantee the restoration of redeemed and glorified humanity to communion with God, along with the self-revolving sword which symbolized the certainty and terribleness of divine vengeance upon sin. But neither by the promises of his grace nor by the threat of his vengeance do these people seem to be restrained from sin. Many of them are sunk in vice. The contrast between splendor and squalor, superfluous wealth and abject poverty, which characterizes all large cities, is sharper, if possible, here than anywhere else. But it is the latter, the picturesque misery of Naples, that makes most impression upon the visitor. Some of the narrow streets, often not more than ten or twenty feet wide, are indescribably filthy, and they swarm with bareheaded, untidy women and half-naked children, yelling hucksters and pertinacious beggars, dirty monks and gowned priests. All this, and more which cannot here be set down, in one of the loveliest places on this beautiful earth.

An observant and witty friend of mine says: "The people live outdoors, and for the best of reason—they would die indoors.... Into most of the living rooms on their narrowest streets the sun never shines.... At the best, the ordinary buildings feel sepulchral, and an overcoat is to be worn here in the house, and not on the streets! Lining the sides of many, if not most of the streets, are shops or booths. They are, as far as one can see, single rooms, furnished about the door with vegetables, or meats, or maccaroni, or wine bottles, or charcoal, or bread, the rest of the room filled with beds and tables and dressers, with dishes and food, and shrines and highly-colored chromos of the saints and apostles. The children are washed and dressed in the doorways, and their heads constantly watched and investigated, much after the friendly fashion of monkeys. By the way, peddlers are forever thrusting small boxes of combs into our faces, insisting upon our buying. We have not purchased any yet—but who can tell? The people do much of their cooking in small braziers outside the doors, on the sidewalk, burning charcoal and fanning the fires with hats or aprons. They have no hesitancy about eating out of the same dish and in the public eye. Cows and goats are driven along the street and milked at the doors into glasses or bottles, which seems a fair guarantee for the milk being fresh. The calves and kids come to town, too, and take in the ways of the city, along with what they get of their mothers' milk. Women wash clothes at the public fountains, some bringing wash-boards or flat stones, some treading the clothes in tubs with their feet. From windows and balconies, on lines stretched along the streets and on cane poles that almost touch the opposite houses, the wet things drip and dry. Squads of soldiers in various uniforms pass and repass at all times of day; old women knit and rest in the doorways; vegetable and fish venders proclaim their wares in high, hard voices. At their cries baskets are let down from upper windows, and the sharpest bargains in the shrillest accents are driven in midair. If the goods are not satisfactory, down go the baskets to the sidewalk."

Of course we visited the aquarium, said to be the finest in the world, and the museum, with its two thousand mural paintings brought from Pompeii, and its collection of ancient bronzes—also the finest in the world.