s between Rome and Naples, and each time solely, as it seemed, to
extract a gratuity. Even the military guard stationed at the gates of
the towns had begged. No one in Italy seemed to speak to him but to beg,
or to _lay the foundation_, as a lawyer would say, for a begging
question. And now these fellows were examining, or pretending to examine
his baggage, and were evidently resolved to keep them there, in the sun
and the dust, till they had paid a sufficient ransom. In this position
it was that Winston and Mildred were, by stolen glances, taking their
first survey of the burning mountain. By stolen glances, because they
were compelled from a certain feeling of politeness to share in the
anxieties and chagrin of Mr. Bloomfield. For themselves, they both
agreed it was much better to submit quietly, and at once, to all these
impositions; even if there were a fair chance, after much controversy,
of a successful resistance. There is surely no money so well laid out as
that which purchases equanimity.

They were extricated at length, and the carriage rattled on into Naples.
Mr. Bloomfield had written to procure apartments in the quarter of the
_Chiaja_, opposite the Villa Reale, (or royal gardens.) To these
therefore they drove. Winston of course found his way to an hotel.

That evening he walked out to look at the burning mountain. It was now,
and during the whole period of their stay, in a state of great activity,
which some dignified with the name of an eruption. As Winston watched
its burning summit across an angle of the bay, he thought he had never
seen any thing which so completely _fascinated_ the eye. The flame
alternately rising and falling leads the spectator every moment to
expect something more than he has hitherto seen, and that _now_ it is
about to burst forth. And even at this distance it is so evidently not a
fire _upon_ but _within_ the mountain, from the manner in which the
flame sinks down, and that red metallic glare which shoots along the
rocky summits and cavities, here the fire is not visible. Yet
fascinating as the object was, it did not entirely rivet the thoughts of
Winston. To his own surprise and confusion, he found that he, a
professed admirer of nature, was standing, for the first time, by the
bay of Naples, under the beautiful star-light of Italy, watching one of
the most magnificent of nature's wonders with a divided and distracted
mind. All this scene, and all its novelty, could not keep Mi