320 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SHALER 



Darkness overtook me near San Giorgio and thence through a wilderness 

 of lava and villages I went on to Naples. Some fete was on hand, so I found 

 the people, save the very old, gathered in knots before small illuminations; 

 night and dust enabled me to melt into the crowd without notice. Only 

 one small boy found out my strangeness and announced it with a yelp. 

 After you have got so that you fool the dogs, the small boy still scents your 

 strangeness. 



Now and then over the walls I could see the red glow of eruption on Ve- 

 suvius, but generally there was no light ; only the now solid darkness to show 

 its place. At length I got to the long sea-bound streets of Naples. The same 

 large crowds and music of bands between silent streets, with old folk within 

 crooning over a little fire, while I was sweating along in the tramontanes. 

 These people in their beautiful nature seem to me after all sad ; they creep 

 along with no fire in their eyes, in a weary sadness ; though noisy they are not 

 merry. I have never seen an Italian merry as a German, or even an Eng- 

 lishman. Here in face of this mighty nature man seems only a thin shadow. 



John P [a Scotch gentleman at Naples who was very courteous to Mr. 



Shaler] was with Stephenson forty years ago at Pompeii ; Stephenson meas- 

 ured cart-tracks and found them to be 4 8', and said that time was with him 



in his battle for the narrow gauge. Mr. P has been in Naples for forty-five 



years, and is the owner of a very large machine-shop, employing seven hun- 

 dred hands ; they are, he says, physically weak, amiable, not interested in 

 their work, have considerable ingenuity in contriving easier methods of doing 



things. Saints' days once a burden are given up. Mr. P saw Garibaldi's 



campaign against the Bourbons; he says that the King's troops seemed 

 perfectly mesmerized by Garibaldi's name. If even five thousand of them 

 could have been held to act, Garibaldi's army could have been beaten. 

 The dependence upon the priesthood is gone; the family priest no longer 

 exists. Once he attended to all the household, married the daughters, and 

 saw to it that the souls of all were safely sent on their way. Once the priest 

 was saluted by kissing his hand, now the peasantry pass him in silence. 

 Mr. P gives a very bad idea of morals. 



He has seen several great eruptions; he describes the roar of the lava 

 as it came against San Sebastiano as something dreadful. He says that in 

 the eruption of 1854 at Torre del Greco, the land rose so as to separate the 

 ends of the rails. . . . The lava ran from Vesuvius through the town to the 

 sea. The deaths in the Atrio del Cavallo in 1872 were from the lava sur- 

 rounding the people by a divided stream that reunited ; some escaped with 

 severe burns by running over the half-solid surface. In the eruption of 1850 

 toward Boscenalle, the saints and pictures were brought out of the churches 

 in the neighborhood and fixed to trees and walls to stay the flood. But it 

 swept on despite the images. 



