should be priests and Croats! They told us all about
the city of Spalato, where they lived, and gave us such a glowing
account of Dalmatian poets and poetry that we began to doubt at last
if the seat of literature were not somewhere on the east coast of the
Adriatic; and I hope we left them the impression that the literary
centre of the world was not a thousand miles from the horse-car office
in Harvard Square.

Here and there repairs were going forward on the railroad, and most
of the laborers were women. They were straight and handsome girls,
and moved with a stately grace under the baskets of earth balanced on
their heads. Brave black eyes they had, such as love to look and to
be looked at; they were not in the least hurried by their work, but
desisted from it to gaze at the passengers whenever the train stopped.
They all wore their beautiful peasant costume,--the square white linen
head-dress falling to the shoulders, the crimson bodice, and the red
scant skirt; and how they contrived to keep themselves so clean at
their work, and to look so spectacular in it all, remains one of the
many Italian mysteries.

Another of these mysteries we beheld in the little beggar-boy at
Isoletta. He stood at the corner of the station quite mute and
motionless during our pause, and made no sign of supplication or
entreaty. He let his looks beg for him. He was perfectly beautiful
and exceedingly picturesque. Where his body was not quite naked, his
jacket and trousers hung in shreds and points; his long hair grew
through the top of his hat, and fell over like a plume. Nobody could
resist him; people ran out of the cars, at the risk of being left
behind, to put coppers into the little dirty hand held languidly out
to receive them. The boy thanked none, smiled on none, but looked
curiously and cautiously at all, with the quick perception and the
illogical conclusions of his class and race. As we started he did not
move, but remained in his attitude of listless tranquillity. As we
glanced back, the mystery of him seemed to be solved for a moment: he
would stand there till he grew up into a graceful, prayerful, pitiless
brigand, and then he would rend from travel the tribute now go freely
given him. But after all, though his future seemed clear, and he
appeared the type of a strange and hardly reclaimable people, he was
not quite a solution of the Neapolitan puzzle.

XIII.

ROMAN PEARLS.

I.

The first view of the ruins in