he palaces, the monumental
fountain, had come from the Spanish viceroys. A sovereign of mixed
origin, Charles the III, Castilian by birth and Neapolitan at heart,
had done the most for the city. His building enthusiasm had embellished
the ancient districts with works similar to those that he erected years
afterward, upon occupying the throne of Spain.

After admiring the Grecian statuary in the museum, and the excavated
objects that revealed the intimate life of the ancients, Ulysses
threaded the tortuous and often gloomy arteries of the popular
districts.

There were streets clinging to the slopes forming landings flanked with
narrow and very high houses. Every vacant space had its balconies, and
from every railing to its opposite were extended lines spread with
clothes of different colors, hung out to dry. Neapolitan fertility made
these little alleys seethe with people. Around the open-air kitchens
there crowded patrons, eating, while standing, their boiled macaroni or
bits of meat.

The hucksters were hawking their goods with melodious, song-like cries,
and cords to which little baskets were fastened were lowered down to
them from balconies. The bargaining and purchases reached from the
depth of the street gutters to the top of the seventh floor, but the
flocks of goats climbed the winding steps with their customary agility
in order to be milked at the various stair landings.

The wharves of the Marinela attracted the captain because of the local
color of this Mediterranean port. Italian unity had torn down and
reconstructed much of it, but there still remained standing various
rows of little low-roofed houses with white or pink facades, green
doors, and lower floors further forward than the upper ones, serving as
props for galleries with wooden balustrades. Everything there that was
not of brick was of clumsy carpentry resembling the work of ship
calkers. Iron did not exist in these terrestrial constructions
suggestive of the sailboat whose rooms were as dark as staterooms.
Through the windows could be seen great conch-shells upon the chests of
drawers, harsh and childish oil paintings representing frigates, and
multi-colored shells from distant seas.

These dwellings repeated themselves in all the ports of the
Mediterranean just as though they were the work of the same hand. As a
child, Ferragut had seen them in the _Grao_ of Valencia and continually
ran across them in Barcelona, in the suburbs of Marseilles