tain the price
of oranges; not for purposes of exportation, nor yet for the personal
importation that I daily practice, but in order to give an American
basis of fact to these idle chapters. In all the paths I meet, daily,
girls and boys bearing on their heads large baskets of the fruit, and
little children with bags and bundles of the same, as large as they can
stagger under; and I understand they are carrying them to the packers,
who ship them to New York, or to the depots, where I see them lying in
yellow heaps, and where men and women are cutting them up, and removing
the peel, which goes to England for preserves. I am told that these
oranges are sold for a couple of francs a hundred. That seems to me so
dear that I am not tempted into any speculation, but stroll back to the
Tramontano, in the gardens of which I find better terms.

The only trouble is to find a sweet tree; for the Sorrento oranges are
usually sour in February; and one needs to be a good judge of the fruit,
and know the male orange from the female, though which it is that is the
sweeter I can never remember (and should not dare to say, if I did, in
the present state of feeling on the woman question),--or he might as
well eat a lemon. The mercenary aspect of my query does not enter in
here. I climb into a tree, and reach out to the end of the branch for
an orange that has got reddish in the sun, that comes off easily and is
heavy; or I tickle a large one on the top bough with a cane pole; and
if it drops readily, and has a fine grain, I call it a cheap one. I can
usually tell whether they are good by splitting them open and eating
a quarter. The Italians pare their oranges as we do apples; but I like
best to open them first, and see the yellow meat in the white casket.
After you have eaten a few from one tree, you can usually tell whether
it is a good tree; but there is nothing certain about it,--one bough
that gets the sun will be better than another that does not, and one
half of an orange will fill your mouth with more delicious juices than
the other half.

The oranges that you knock off with your stick, as you walk along the
lanes, don't cost anything; but they are always sour, as I think the
girls know who lean over the wall, and look on with a smile: and, in
that, they are more sensible than the lively dogs which bark at you
from the top, and wake all the neighborhood with their clamor. I have no
doubt the oranges have a market price; but I hav