EASTERN PACIFIC EXPEDITION 437 



a couple of weeks and the same in London, to sail the 

 28th by the Kron Prinz Wilhelm, reaching New York 

 the 3d of April. Max and I both wish we had kept 

 on in our steamer from Naples to Marseilles and gone 

 back to Monte Carlo. The Italian railroads are simply 

 infernal and filthy and crowded to death. Being Gov- 

 ernment railroads, complaints are of course useless, and 

 yet that is what Theodore the First wants to do. I should 

 like to condemn him to a week of travel there — he 'd 

 change his views. 



We had an excellent sight of the lava flow of Vesu- 

 vius ; it was really very fine at night to see the great 

 river of red lava flowing down the slope and occasionally 

 reinforced by an explosion and flow from the crater. It 

 was quite cold in Italy; the snow was halfway down 

 Vesuvius, and going north of Rome came to within a few 

 hundred feet of the plain from the summits. The few 

 days we had at Monte Carlo were beautiful, and I greatly 

 enjoyed seeing the Riviera again. I dropped into the 

 Casino, and a more disgusting sight I can't imagine, to 

 see the old men and women with their claws reaching; 

 out for the little they make, while the bank is raking 

 it in, and young and old sitting there all day long. 

 I should think a couple of visits would cure any gam- 

 bler. There must have been twelve to fifteen hundred 

 people in the Casino at a time and a flood going in and 

 out. 



I lunched with the Prince, where there were a lot of 

 people I did not know, but found the members of his 

 household whom I had met in Paris and the Captain of 

 his yacht, who was an old acquaintance. As soon as we 

 could get away he took me to see his Oceanic Museum; 

 it is a large and very handsome building to be finished 



