n the glare of the
steamer's lamps, I could only think of Tennyson's description:--

"And round about the keel with faces pale,
Dark faces pale against the rosy flame,
The mild-eyed melancholy lotus-eaters came."

The mystery of this placidity had been already solved by our captain,
whom I had asked what price I should bargain to pay from the steamer
to the shore. "There is a tariff," said he, "and the boatmen keep to
it. The Neapolitans are good people, (_buona gente_,) and only needed
justice to make them obedient to the laws." I must say that I found
this to be true. The fares of all public conveyances are now fixed,
and the attempts which drivers occasionally make to cheat you, seem
to be rather the involuntary impulses of old habit than deliberate
intentions to do you wrong. You pay what is due, and as your man
merely rumbles internally when you turn away, you must be a very timid
_signorin_, indeed, if you buy his content with any thing more. I
fancy that all these things are now much better managed in Italy than
in America, only we grumble at them there and stand them in silence at
home. Every one can recall frightful instances of plunder, in which
he was the victim, at New York--in which the robbery had none of the
neatness of an operation, as it often has in Italy, but was a brutal
mutilation. And then as regards civility from the same kind of people
in the two countries, there is no comparison that holds in favor of
us. All questions are readily and politely answered in Italian travel,
and the servants of companies are required to be courteous to the
public whereas, one is only too glad to receive a silent snub from
such people at home.

II.

The first sun that rose after our arrival in Naples was mild and warm
as a May sun, though we were quite in the heart of November. We early
strolled out under it into the crowded ways of the city, and drew near
as we might to that restless, thronging, gossiping southern life,
in contrast with which all northern existence seems only a sort of
hibernation. The long Toledo, on which the magnificence of modern
Naples is threaded, is the most brilliant and joyous street in
the world; but I think there is less of the quaintness of Italian
civilization to be seen in its vivacious crowds than anywhere else
in Italy. One easily understands how, with its superb length and
straightness, and its fine, respectable, commonplace-looking houses,
it should be the pride of a