386 PEOSE HALIEUTICS. 



fruit-stalls are in great muster : their keepers expecting 

 now to dispose of commodities that have hung some time 

 on hand : not a skewer of baked pears ; not an orange on 

 sweet or hitter principles : not a string of rosy tomatas, 

 nor bunch of blushing service-apples^ can be spared from 

 the gay gilt booths on this grand occasion. Fish-stalls 

 however everywhere predominate: here giant lobsters 

 expand and flap their fan-like tails^ and bound off the 

 board as if they already felt the hot water. Thousands 

 of 'uongli/ piles of 'frutti di mare/ and every other 

 species of bivalve^ with fish of all shapes and hueSj fami- 

 liar to him who has studied the fresco and mosaic co- 

 quiUages on the walls and in the floors of the houses of 

 Pompeii, lie in confused heaps upon the street flags; 

 but the predominating delicacy, the fish most in request, 

 is, as we have said, eels. This is indeed ' all-eel day;^ not 

 a biped of our race in Naples but hopes to eat them in 

 some fashion or other ; the very paupers consider it hard 

 if no friendly Christian furnish them with the means of 

 procuring a taste at least of ' capitoni,' though these ex- 

 pensive luxuries fetch not less than six carlini a rotolo, 

 or about a shilling a pound. The dispensers of the deli- 

 cacy occupy either side of the Toledo from end to end, 

 and there display the curling, twisting, snake-like forms 

 of their slippery merchandise, in every possible pose, 

 and under every variety of suffering ; some, suspended 

 over the booths, wriggle round the poles to which they 

 are attached; others, half flayed to demonstrate the 

 whiteness of the flesh, undtJate their slimy coils by 

 thousands in large open hampers ; and while some are 

 swimming, but in vain, for their lives in wooden troughs 

 of cold water, others are fizzing and sputtering in the 

 midst of hot grease in huge frying-pans over the fire ; 

 customers are incessant in their demands, and every 

 man, woman, and child, carries home eels, cooked or 

 uncooked, for breakfast, dinner, supper, and many an in- 



