SECRETARY'S REPORT. 269 



the many collections from Pompeii, Herculaneum, and other 

 excavated cities. 



The beggars in and around Naples are the most importunate 

 of any we found in Italy. We could not escape them. They 

 met us at every turn, and seemed determined to extort a few 

 carlini from us wherever we went. At the amphitheatre at 

 Pompeii, there appeared a poor cripple who implored so earn- 

 estly for aid, that one of our party gave him a pretty good 

 present, but our backs were scarcely turned before he jumped 

 upon a splendid two hundred dollar horse, which our guide 

 said no doubt belonged to him. 



There is a feeling of insecurity in southern Italy which is 

 felt nowhere else so strongly. Many a man we met would 

 probably have taken life for the smallest reward. One of the 

 bandits who dogged our steps to the very top of Vesuvius, had 

 killed a man in the December previous, and had kept concealed 

 among the mountains ever since, was an interesting piece of 

 information which our guide gave us when we had got safely 

 down. You feel among them as if you might " wake up some 

 morning and find your throat cut from ear to ear." 



The upper classes seem to live here for pleasure alone — a 

 degenerate, enervated race, who pride themselves on the gran- 

 deur of their old family history. It is owing in part, perhaps, 

 to the effect of the climate, and in part to their political institu- 

 tions. But the lower classes appeared to be industrious. 

 Mechanics of all kinds were at work in the open air, generally 

 in the streets. Men work naked for the most part. We saw 

 thousands in Italy with scarcely a rag to cover them. Italian 

 life is very much out of doors. 



We entered the states of the pope by way of Civita Vecchia, 

 where our passports were taken from us, with the information 

 that we should find them at the office of the chief of police in 

 Rome. Our baggage was examined with great care, and it was 

 only after considerable trouble that we got well seated in the 

 train, and began to move on slowly through a dreary, parched, 

 and wretchedly cultivated country, the least attractive of any 

 we had seen in Italy. ' 



The campagna which stretches in every direction some miles 

 around Rome, is covered with rank coarse wild grasses, which 

 indicate a soil naturally fertile, but neglected and left to tak e 



