tisement of the carpet-sweeper and Mary Ann!

Other streets are very narrow and filled with people buying and selling.
There are swarms of children rolling about in the filth of the roadway;
they are dressed in rags and their bodies show through the large holes.
They are often playing with old bones or pebbles. Their faces are
sometimes quite beautiful, rich golden-brown in colour, and their great
velvety brown eyes look so sweetly innocent you would be easily taken in
by them; but they are terrible little rogues and would beg from you or
steal if they got the chance. Here and there are shops where macaroni is
sold; it is ready boiling in great pans; this and cakes made of a kind
of flour called polenta are the chief food of the Italians. The macaroni
is made out of flour mixed with water to a stiff paste and squeezed
through holes in a box till it comes out in long strings. It used to be
made in all the dust and dirt of the villages, and is still often to be
seen hanging over posts there to dry, but there are now large
manufactories where it is made quite cleanly by machinery; we shall see
some as we pass on our way to Pompeii, where we are going. There is one
pleasant thing to notice, namely, wherever you look you see flowers
growing; the larger and better-class houses have balconies filled with
broad-leaved plants and creepers, and the very poorest people living
high up towards the sky have window-boxes filled with flowers.

At the station we find a little train, like a tram, with red velvet
cushions, and while we sit and wait for it to take us to Pompeii, the
city buried by Vesuvius, the rain falls softly and steadily. Presently
the stationmaster and his assistant step out gingerly along the
uncovered platform, holding umbrellas over their uniforms, and give the
word of command, and very slowly we start, and jolt along, stopping
frequently. We pass through market gardens first and then through
endless vineyards, in many of which the clinging vines are not propped
up on sticks, but merely looped from one poplar tree to another, for the
trees are growing in straight rows and form a natural support. This
ground is particularly good for vines, for the lava which has been dug
into the soil is peculiarly fruitful.

There are little white box-like houses amid the vines, and they are hung
all over with bunches of brilliant scarlet fruit, which, when we get
near enough to see, we find to be tiny tomatoes. Other houses have