NAPLES BAT AND FISH-MARKET. 93 



of demarcation points out accurately the distance to 

 which, in this tideless sea, the city sewerage extends; 

 that once passed, all nuisances are at an end; and by 

 the time the hoat has advajiced through a host of brown- 

 backed divers* rising thick round its course, and snort- 

 ing like a company of seals, the complexion of the water 

 has cleared ; the Babel of city sounds is reduced by dis- 

 tance to a mere hum, scarcely audible amidst the flap- 



ing tte scene, stepped up to interpose, and declared that An- 

 tonio liad only done his duty ; but since our ' Excellency was 

 medical, and inclined for a bath, lie should be permitted to carry 

 sis buckets from beyond the usual limits ; but it is absolutely 

 forbidden,' raising his voice to be heard by those around, ' for any 

 one else to take water except just here.' ' Why P' asked we inno- 

 cently. ' They would else knead their flour from the brine, and 

 so cheat government of the salt-tax,' was the reply ; for the farm- 

 ing of the salt being a source of revenue to the privy purse, the 

 rights of monopolist contractors for the time being are most ri- 

 gidly protected. 



* The time passed under water by these lazzaroni is a curious 

 calculation ; m the water they remain probably more than half 

 their natural lives ; and of this again, half is spent under water 

 with the fishes ; three-quarters of a minute was, we found, the 

 average time for a dive ; they then come up, throw a handful of 

 ooze into the floating basket, turn over, and go down again 

 for the better part of a minute, and so on, for the day's work. 

 Some of these men can remain two minutes out of sight, but the 

 most daring among them, when we were at Naples in 1844, was 

 a celebrated Sicilian diver employed by Ferdinand, who would 

 plunge through twenty-five fathom, and bring him up tidings of 

 long-lost treasures. Had Pope been at Naples, we must have 

 suspected his description of the contention in the Dunciad, for 

 the diver's prize, to have been transferred to paper from what he 

 saw here ; the lines — 



No crabs more active in the dirty dance. 

 Downward to climb, and backward to advance, etc., 



most graphically depict the evolutions of these men-fish ; indeed 

 no men but lazzaroni could long endure to live in water so re- 

 volting. 



