NAPLES BAT AND PISH-MAEKET. 109 



the chess-board or jeweller's shop, — Brohdignag pawns 

 in marble, or colossal seal-handles in stucco, capped either 

 with a gilt Madonna, or a flag, bearing Santa Maria on 

 one side, and St. Januarius on the other. 



Ever and anon, accompanied by a fresh crowd, and 

 announced by beat of drum, new arrivals of fish, just 

 landed, are paraded, as was the sturgeon in days of yore, 

 in long procession to the spot. Next come the Capi del 

 Speranzelli* or chiefs of the market, with their huge 

 scales, which being speedily adjusted, the fish is duly 

 weighed and registered, and then sold in lots. Mess- 

 men, trattori, chefs, convent cooks, crowd round the auc- 

 tioneer, who forthwith begins, a la Robins, to put up for 

 sale the pesce nobile, the chefs d'ceuvre of the market. 

 'Ah! fichi ! fichi! che belle cose ! a quanto, signori miei ?' 

 etc., looking iaterrogatively at the principal buyers, 

 hoping thereby to excite them to outbid one another ; 

 and the same fierce contention then commences which 

 was exhibited nineteen centuries ago, when LucuUus 

 purchased mullet and parrot-fish for his entertainments, 

 and Apicius wrote aphorisms in his study on preparing 

 and cooking them. There is always a loud and amusing 

 competition between the hotel and convent cooks, each 

 acting according to the instruction of his chief, but the 

 former generally bearing away the prime specimens. 



It is impossible to conceive anything like the din and 



* There are about a dozen of these men, elected out of the 

 confraternity of fishermen, who, for the consideration of one 

 grain (the fourth part of a farthing) per pound, weigh, register, 

 and dispose of the fish to their servants for sale ; and so scrupu- 

 lously exact are they in repaying the proceeds to the fishermen, 

 that they obtaui, as a reward for their honesty — which seems the 

 best policy even among such rogues as these — a considerable 

 competence, and sometimes a fortune. In all cases of dispute, 

 application is made to the consul (every trade has its consul), who 

 caUs a court, and from his decision there is no appeal. 



