a and had everything handsome about them.
The head of the family strikes me as a typical figure; he is an elderly
man, with a fine head, a dignified presence, and a coldly courteous
demeanour. By preference he speaks French, and his favourite subject is
Paris. One observes in him something like disdain for his own country,
which in his mind is associated only with falling fortunes and loss of
self-respect. The cordial Italian note never sounds in his talk. The
_signora_ (also a little ashamed of her own language) excites herself
about taxation--as well she may--and dwells with doleful vivacity on
family troubles. Both are astonished at my eccentricity and hardiness
in undertaking a solitary journey through the wild South. Their
geographical notions are vague; they have barely heard of Cosenza or of
Cotrone, and of Paola not at all; it would as soon occur to them to set
out for Morocco as for Calabria. How shall I get along with people
whose language is a barbarous dialect? Am I aware that the country is
in great part pestilential?--_la febbre_! Has no one informed me that
in autumn snows descend, and bury everything for months? It is useless
to explain that I only intend to visit places easily accessible, that I
shall travel mostly by railway, and that if disagreeable weather sets
in I shall quickly return northwards. They look at me dubiously, and
ask themselves (I am sure) whether I have not some more tangible motive
than a lover of classical antiquity. It ends with a compliment to the
enterprising spirit of the English race.

I have purchases to make, business to settle, and I must go hither and
thither about the town. Sirocco, of course, dusks everything to
cheerless grey, but under any sky it is dispiriting to note the changes
in Naples. _Lo sventramento_ (the disembowelling) goes on, and regions
are transformed. It is a good thing, I suppose, that the broad Corso
Umberto I. should cut a way through the old Pendino; but what a
contrast between that native picturesqueness and the cosmopolitan
vulgarity which has usurped its place! "_Napoli se ne va_!" I pass the
Santa Lucia with downcast eyes, my memories of ten years ago striving
against the dulness of to-day. The harbour, whence one used to start
for Capri, is filled up; the sea has been driven to a hopeless distance
beyond a wilderness of dust-heaps. They are going to make a long,
straight embankment from the Castel dell'Ovo to the Great Port, and
before long the