ponded, assuring us that our gift, the
forbidden, was acceptable.

After returning from Pompeii to our steamship we found that although the
evening hours had arrived, the harbor was still a scene of animation.
Scores of Italian stevedores were carrying baskets of coal on their
shoulders from barges into the bunkers of the Moltke. Near by other
laborers were hoisting crates of lemons and oranges and lowering them
into the hold of an English steamer. A little rowboat with a stove on
board was running a brisk restaurant business, selling bread, coffee,
fried eggs, fried potatoes, and fried fish to boatmen and laborers, who
managed to devour the viands without assistance of plate, knife, or
fork.

Alongside our steamer a number of boys in a rowboat were making a
distracting noise with tin pans and crude instruments, looking up in the
hope that some one would pay them for creating a disturbance. In another
boat, gaily attired Neapolitan musicians played and sang popular airs in
a pleasing way that drew coins from the pockets of the hearers. At the
close of each piece of music one of the women held a spread umbrella
upside down to catch the coppers that were dropped into it from the deck
thirty feet above.

"The daylight ends too soon," regretfully observed one of our party, an
artist of considerable reputation, who, seated in his favorite nook near
the stern, was endeavoring to complete his color notes and sketches of
the picturesque scenes before the darkness hid them from view. "But the
sky above the mountain is reddening and the glow of Vesuvius will give
me work for to-night."

CHAPTER XVII.

NICE AND MENTONE.

Throughout the cruise to the Orient, up to the time of departure from
Naples, our party of tourists had the great steamer to themselves, there
being no other passengers on board. At Naples, however, a change took
place. As the Steamship Company granted us the privilege of remaining
over in Europe and returning later in the season in some other steamer
of the same line, a large number of the tourists left the Moltke at
Naples for side trips on the Continent, and many more intended to leave
at Nice; so that not more than one-fourth of the original number was
booked to return direct from Nice to New York. During the time our
steamer lay at Naples a cargo of freight was taken on board, and on the
day of departure one thousand steerage passengers ascended the gangway,
some with valises of curious shape,