NAPLES BAY AND FISH-MAEKET. 91 



nonizing a pagan practice, has declared that henceforth, 

 under her sanction, the faithful may safely eat finny 

 food as an act of penance, and fast upon viands which 

 were held by their idolatrous progenitors as the height 

 of luxury and self-iadulgence.* It is well for the credit 

 of a church issuing such unlimited orders upon the sea, 

 that they have been hitherto punctually met : had she 

 been called upon after the decree was gone forth to mul- 

 tiply deficient supplies, her reputation for thaumaturgy, 

 great as it undoubtedly is, might have suffered, and the 

 required support for the faithful have turned out lament- 

 ably inadequate. But this fruitful Bay, in spite of the 

 greatly increased demands of a greatly increased popu- 

 lation, continues, after the constant draggings and dredg- 

 ings of eighteen centuries, as exhaust! ess as ever, being 

 no sooner emptied of live-stock than it fills again. Be- 

 fore proceeding to explore its treasures a fonds, we will 

 take a hasty view of the external beauties. For the en- 

 joyment of these the visitor must row some way out to 

 sea, and get beyond the reach of the thousand cloacal 

 pipes which are continually pouring out the abominations 

 of the city, and turning the inner part of the Bay into 

 one vast cesspool. The waters here, always foul, look 

 particularly so under a wet sky, when the scourings of 

 the streets have added their contingent of dirt, and made 

 the turbid mass yet more black in complexion. At such 

 a time, flights of hungry sea-mews hover along the shore. 



* Severe as Eome is in her dealings with. Heretics' in Kttle mat- 

 ters of taste, she shows great tenderness to her children, permit- 

 ting the heterodox stomachs of her orthodox sons to object to the 

 prescribed diet, or even, Erasmus-like, to go to the length of de- 

 claring, without fear of excommunication, tha.t their nostrils can 

 discern no odour of sanctity, but, on the contrary, a very dis- 

 agreeable odour, in all kinds of fish, whether they belong to the 

 list which Galen considered wholesome, or to that which the Jew- 

 ish code pronounced clean. 



