NAPLES. 145 



long before an unclaimed body had been deposited and left a 

 good while. I need not say that the peasants avoided the 

 place altogether after dark. So I went at Hallowe'en mid- 

 night without any results whatever. 



All this is tame and stupid enough in the telling. But 

 there were three families of us there that year, and we were 

 always together. The enjoyment was something intense, and 

 the remembrance of it as vivid as if it did not need nearly 

 fifty years to carry me back to it. In these later years I hear 

 the place is modernized and improved, but I do not believe it 

 is half as pleasant. 



Now cross over to Sorrento on the mainland and four miles 

 to the southward and eastward. Stay there, if you like ; I 

 am not going to. The memory is not pleasant. Wrong 

 season, various annoyances. Lovely road along the cliffs 

 towards Castellamare, past Pompeii. Your books will tell 

 you all about it. What I principally remember about Pompeii 

 is that there I for the first time in my life plucked a live 

 orange off the tree, and that my good friend, Frank Abbott, 

 rest his soul, and I desecrated the ampitheatre by engaging in 

 a shrieking, yelling, retiarius and secator fight, using a Scotch 

 plaid and an umbrella for Niger's net and trident, and a walk- 

 ing stick and Murray for Sporus' sword and shield. 



Herculaneum I never saw. Same reason as Ischia. 



So now at last we have on our second round reached 

 Naples. We pass through renowned Santa L,ucia and through 

 the fishy smelling Basso Porto — Bash' Poort, as the Neapoli- 

 tan calls it. Even in my day the lazzaroni had all disap- 

 peared, being converted into sensible fishermen. But they 

 wore their red caps. I longed to see a man swallow an 

 unbroken yard of maccheroni, but it was not given me. My 

 pockets, as I went about, were attempted several times with 

 such amazing coolness and audacit}' that I fairly laughed. 



Naples is the most densely populated city in Europe, a dis- 

 tinction b}' no means to be envied. In my time drain fever 



