ell,
perhaps there is a scintilla of truth in the sweeping observation, yet if
we can contrive to endure the smells and racket of the place for a brief
space of time, there is much of human interest to be observed in the daily
scenes of its crowded beach and its noisy streets. After all, no odours of
the South can compare in all-pervading intensity with the blended aroma of
fried fish and London fog that old Drury Lane can often produce; nor are
the Torrese more dangerous to strangers or more objectionable in their
habits than the crowds of Lambeth or Seven Dials. In strength of lungs, it
must be granted, the Italian easily surpasses the Londoner, for the
Southern voice is positively alarming in its vigour and its far-reaching
power. No one--man, woman or child--can apparently speak below a scream;
even the most amiable or trivial of conversations seems to our
unaccustomed ears to portend an imminent quarrel, to so high a pitch are
the naturally harsh voices strained. Morning, noon and night the same
hubbub of men shouting, of women screeching, and of children yelling
continues for nobody minds noise in Italy, where people are troubled with
no nerves of their own and consequently have no consideration for those of
strangers. And why, therefore, should they suspend their native habits to
please a handful of cavilling _forestieri_?

A stroll through Torre Annunziata, although it possesses not a few
drawbacks, can be made both amusing and instructive; we can even find
something attractive in the quality of the local atmosphere, which
suggests at one and the same time sunshine, garlic, incense, stale fish
and wood smoke; it is the pungent but characteristic aroma of the South,
filled "with spicy odours Time can never mar." And what truly charming
pictures do the family groups present in the wide archways giving on the
untidy courts within, full of sun and shadow and gay with bright-coloured
garments swaying in the wind! The ebon-haired young mother with teeth like
pearls and with warm-tinted cheeks sits fondling the last helpless little
addition to her growing family, whilst toddlers of any age from two to
seven, unkempt but bright-eyed and engaging, play around the door-step,
watched over by their grandmother, or may be their great-grandam, who with
her wizened face enfolded in her yellow kerchief, her skinny neck, and her
distaff in the bony fingers, looks as if she had stepped out of some
Renaissance painting of the Three