here my
governor and his daughters were, an Italian lady and a priest. Of the
lady I have not much to say; she appeared to be a quiet respectable
person enough, and after our arrival at Naples, I neither saw nor heard
anything more of her; but of the priest I shall have a good deal to say
in the sequel, (that, by-the-bye, is a word I learned from the professor
of rhetoric,) and it would have been well for our family had they never
met him.

"On the third day of the voyage the priest came to me, who was rather
unwell with sea-sickness, which he, of course, felt nothing of, that kind
of people being never affected like others. He was a finish-looking man
of about forty-five, but had something strange in his eyes, which I have
since thought denoted that all was not right in a certain place called
the heart. After a few words of condolence, in a broken kind of English,
he asked me various questions about our family; and I, won by his seeming
kindness, told him all I knew about them, of which communicativeness I
afterwards very much repented. As soon as he had got out of me all he
desired, he left me; and I observed that during the rest of the voyage he
was wonderfully attentive to our governor, and yet more to the young
ladies. Both, however, kept him rather at a distance; the young ladies
were reserved, and once or twice I heard our governor cursing him between
his teeth for a sharking priest. The priest, however, was not
disconcerted, and continued his attentions, which in a little time
produced an effect, so that, by the time we landed at Naples, our great
folks had conceived a kind of liking for the man, and when they took
their leave invited him to visit them, which he promised to do. We hired
a grand house or palace at Naples; it belonged to a poor kind of prince,
who was glad enough to let it to our governor, and also his servants and
carriages; and glad enough were the poor servants, for they got from us
what they never got from the prince--plenty of meat and money--and glad
enough, I make no doubt, were the horses for the provender we gave them;
and I daresay the coaches were not sorry to be cleaned and furbished up.
Well, we went out and came in; going to see the sights, and returning.
Amongst other things we saw was the burning mountain, and the tomb of a
certain sorcerer called Virgilio, who made witch rhymes, by which he
could raise the dead. Plenty of people came to see us, both English and
Italians, a