NAPLES AND ITS CRAFT.

After twenty days sight-seeing in Rome, observe me seated in the front of a viturino on my way to Naples. E. G. Squires, the author of a book of discoveries, is seated in one of the back seats. He is a little man full of humor, and a man to judge him by his looks and manners would have a hard task to steer from error. He is well versed in Roman lore. We were now an hour and half out from Rome, and he said “look there ahead, those old walls we are going under is the walls of old Rome, and that high archway, with those splendid pillars of carved stone, is the gate leading into Rome via the Appian road from Naples.” We passed through these walls and Rome was forgotten, in the matters of interest to which he directed our attention. As we came up to the pretty little ruined city Albano, he said, “there, gentlemen, is the tomb of Pompey the Great.” It was a tall monumental tomb of white marble, but fallen on all sides by the wreck of the weather. We entered Albano and dined, and paid a visit to the Veil of Diana, whose temple was here at Albano. This city occupies the site of the palace of Pompey the Great and Domitian. The Veil of Diana is a lake of a few hundred yards round, and hemmed in on all sides by cliffs of fertility. Two days and a half brought me to the back part of the city of Naples. In coming to Naples by this route you are some hours going down hill, but as the lombard poplar trees are so numerous, it is impossible to get a look at Naples; occasionally I could hear the roar of Vesuvius and the hum of business, coming by the force of the breeze from the bay on the other side. All at once I came out on an open descending slope, but, a quarter of a mile ahead, the lombardy poplars intercepted our view, still over their tops, off to the left of Naples, I could see Vesuvius like a sleeping giant with his flag of wrath ascending on high. The flag of smoke was as still as a standing cloud, and it stood like God on the earth, but spreading above in the Heavens.

Napoli is the city’s name, and its meaning is New City, and we call it Naples.

I don’t think that one contented man can be found in the whole city of Naples, with its 450,000 souls. Every time this growling, burning mountain roars it jars the whole city; organ grinders give themselves as little trouble about Vesuvius as any other class, and the streets are full of them. They stand all day playing away in the streets as if they had no where to run to, whilst all house tenants, citizens, king and priests, run in the streets for fear Vesuvius will spit fire and brimstone on them, for she has once or twice proved that she, like God, had no respect of persons. Naples is at least five miles off, but they looked to me as if they were only a quarter of a mile apart. It is believed by philosophical men that Vesuvius has burnt out her bowels for miles under the shallow bay, and also under Naples.

I went to Pompeii and Herculanium, two great cities that Vesuvius, in her tipsy spree, belched all over, destroying population, temples, theatres, and gladiatorial arenas. Expeditions from different parts of the world were here, excavating crowns of diamonds; and hundreds of thousands of scuddies worth of the rarest jemmed jewelry has been found, even upon the parched bones of notorious victims to this hideous spree.

Naples was founded one thousand and three hundred years before the Christian era, and still escapes this awful calamity. Generation after generation has lived and died in this fear, and still Naples is yet the most wicked city on the face of the globe. It shows that hell-fire preaching will never advance man in this world, or better prepare him for another. Nothing but an educated mind can ever understand the mission of christianity. If tyranny can ever do anything with the mind of man, it had full scope here. The Neapolitans, reared under such fearful influences of wrath, must naturally be tempered with surrounding influences. To see a club slain man in Naples is no object of pity; their mind is forever placed on wholesale calamities, and nothing short of that can excite sympathy in such a people. They can fight well because they are always well prepared to fight, or be annihilated. When the great Carthagenian, who was so victorious over the Romans, at the well known battle of Thrasimene, came here to take Naples, he was so much frightened at the walls, that he would not undertake to besiege the city. Cumae was the first name of this city, but its inhabitants being a very jealous people, fell out, and destroyed it; but it was soon rebuilt, and then it was renamed New City, Napoli, when its walls obtained the strength that scared the son of Hamilcar, who had come away from Carthage, leaving behind him a people who could never believe that the Italians could be whipped, not even by Hannibal, until he sent three bushels of gold rings back, that was taken from the fingers of conquered Italians, to prove it.

There is three hundred churches in Naples, but the vestry of priesthood is no sign of the true temple of wisdom. The lower classes are craft ridden from the faggest end of an intelligent class, to the uttermost peak of sublime ignorance. The moral authority has great power over those who profess to be the followers of the Church; even the king himself, is afraid of the priest. In illustration of this I must relate an anecdote on the present king of Naples, whose title is better known as the king of the two Sicilies. A good, and honest intentioned priest one day called on the king to obtain a certain small sum of money from his honor, as a starting point of collection to build a church at a certain place. The king, who loves money much, refused to start the ball rolling by contributing the first subscription. The good father, somewhat astonished, stood sometime, thinking over the chances of getting anything after the king’s refusal, put his hand under his ground colored gown to lay hold of his handkerchief to wipe his nose and eyes of their weeping. The king took fright, and ran to the bell and rang furiously, the guard came running in and arrested the priest, but to their great pleasure they discovered that the king was frightened at the priest’s motion for his handkerchief, instead of a stilleto. The people got wind of it, and laughed at the scary old king so that he dare not go out.

This old ugly king has been trying to make some improvements in the way of morality. He has appropriated a small portion of the city to the safe keeping of lewd women. It is about three squares of this city being walled in, and all women found and proven in adultery are to be condemned to the inside of these walls until the city authorities become satisfied that they are sufficiently punished. Police are stationed at the gate and no one but spectators are allowed to go in and out, except an old woman who acts as their steward. All foreigners are allowed to go in once, but I don’t suppose foreigners ever wished to go in more than once. When I was in, the Lazaroni asked me if I would allow him to spend a quarter of my bag of change to see the women perform. I, not knowing what he meant, said “Yes.” He gave a 25c. piece to one woman, and there was a hundred in that group, and said something in Italian, when, as many as wished to claim stock in the 25 cents commenced showing their nakedness, to the horror of man’s sensual curiosity. I saw fifty women show what I had never legally seen before. I must end this chapter and commence another of more superstition, of St. Janarius and his Blood.