At two o’clock in the afternoon I landed, and the kind assistance of Herr Brettschneider at once procured me an excellent room in Santa Lucia, with a prospect of the harbour and the bay, besides a view of Vesuvius and the region surrounding it.  As usual, I wished to commence my researches at once; but already in Palermo I had felt an unceasing pain in my side, so that my last walks there had been attended with considerable difficulty.

Here I became really ill, and was unable to quit my room.  I had a boil on my back, which required the care of the surgeon, and kept me in my room for a fortnight, until the fever had abated.

If this misfortune had happened to me in the East, or even while I was in quarantine at Malta, who knows whether I should not have been looked upon as having a “plague-boil,” and shut up for forty days?

During my imprisonment here, my only relaxation during the hours when I was free from fever and it did not rain, was to sit on the balcony, contemplating the beautiful prospect, and looking on the bustling, lively populace.  The Neapolitans appeared to me very ill-behaved, boisterous, and quarrelsome, and seemed to entertain a great horror of work.  The latter circumstance seems natural enough, for they require little for their daily support, and we hardly find that the common people any where work more than is necessary to shield them from immediate want; this is particularly the case in Italy, where the heat is oppressive during the day, and the temperature of the evening so agreeable, every one wishes to enjoy himself rather than to work.

I sometimes saw men employ themselves for half a day together in pushing bullets with a little stick through a ring fastened to the ground:  this is one of the most popular games.  The women are always sitting or standing in front of the houses, chattering or quarrelling; and the children lie about in the streets all day long.  The veriest trifle suffices to breed a quarrel among old or young, and then they kick one another with their feet—­a very graceful practice for women or girls!  Even with their knives they are ready on all occasions.

For making observations on the Neapolitans no better post can be chosen than a lodging in the quarter St. Lucia.  The fishermen, lazzaroni, and sailors live in the little side lanes, and spend the greater part of the day in the large street of St. Lucia, the chief resort both for pedestrians and people on horse-back and in carriages.  In and about the harbour we find numerous vendors of oysters and crabs, which they bring fresh from the sea.  The lazzaroni no longer go about half naked, and the common people are dressed in a decent though not in a picturesque manner.

Here a number of handsome equipages rolled by; their lady occupants were very fashionably attired.

Even among the better classes it is usual for the men to purchase all the household necessaries, such as fish, bread, poultry, etc.  Poultry is very much eaten in Italy, particularly turkeys, which are sometimes sold ready cut up, according to weight.  On Sundays and holydays the shops containing wares and provisions, and the meat and poultry stalls, are opened in the same way as on a week-day.  Throughout all Italy we do not see them closed for the observance of a Sunday or holyday.