Of the shouting and crowding here no conception can be formed.  Large kettles are placed in front of the shops, and the proprietors sit beside them, plunging a great wooden fork and spoon into the cauldron to fill the plates of expectant customers.  Some eat their favourite dish with fat and cheese, others without, according to the state of their exchequer for the time being; but one and all eat with their fingers.  The army of hungry mortals seems innumerable; and during feeding-time the stranger finds no little difficulty in forcing a passage, notwithstanding the breadth of the street.  Not far from this thoroughfare of the people two “Punchinellos” are erected.  In one of these the Marionettes are a foot and a half, and in the other no less than three feet high.

There is, besides, a theatre for the people, where pieces of tragic and comic character are performed, in all of which the clown plays a prominent part.  The remaining theatres, the Nuovo, the Carlini, and others, are about the size of those in the Leopold- and Josephstadt at Vienna, and can accommodate about 800 spectators.  Their exteriors and interiors are alike undistinguished; but in some of them the singing and playing are very creditable.  In one of these theatres we are obliged to descend instead of to ascend to reach the pit and the first tier of boxes.

Naples contains more than three hundred churches and chapels.  I visited a number of them, for I entered every church that came in my way.  St. Fernando, a church of no great size, but of very pleasing appearance, struck me particularly.  The ceiling of this edifice is covered with frescoes, and the walls enriched with marble.  At the two side altars we find a pair of very fine half-length pictures of saints.

St. Jesu Nuovo, another exceedingly handsome church, stands on the borders of the Lago Maggiore, and is full of magnificent frescoes, surrounded by arabesque borders.  The latter appear as though they were gilded, and the effect thus produced is remarkably fine.  This spacious building contains a number of small chapels, partitioned off by massive gratings.  The great cupola is exceedingly handsome, and every chapel boasts a separate one.

St. Jesu Maggiore does not carry out its appellation, for it is a small unpretending church, though some splendid gothic ornaments beautify the exterior.

St. Maria di Piedigrotta, another little church, is much frequented, from the fact that the common people place great confidence in the picture of the Virgin there displayed.  The church contains nothing worthy of notice.

The grotto of Pausilipp, a cavern of immense length, now called Puzzoli, is not far distant.  This grotto, hewn out of a rock, is about 1200 paces long, between 50 and 60 feet in height, and of such breadth that two carriages can easily pass each other.  A little chapel cut out of the rock occupies the middle of the cavern, and both grotto and chapel are illuminated night and day.  As in the whole of Naples, the pavement here is formed of lava from Mount Vesuvius.