“Ah, my God! how much I suffered!” says a sweet little woman with gentle brown eyes, red, red lips, and blameless Greek lines of face.  “I broke two basins!”

“There were ten broken in all, by Diana!” says this lady’s sister.

“Presence of the Devil!” says her husband; and

“Body of Bacchus!” her young brother, puffing his cigar.

“And you, sir,” said the lady, turning to a handsome young fellow in civil dress, near her, “how did you pass this horrible night?”

“Oh!” says the young man, twirling his heavy blond mustache, “mighty well, mighty well!”

“Oh mercy of God!  You were not sick?”

“I, signora, am never sea-sick.  I am of the navy.”

At which they all cry oh, and ah, and declare they are glad of it, though why they should have been I don’t know to this day.

“I have often wished,” added the young man meditatively, and in a serious tone, as if he had indeed given the subject much thought, “that it might please God to let me be sea-sick once, if only that I might know how it feels.  But no!” He turned the conversation, as if his disappointment were too sore to dwell upon; and hearing our English, he made out to let us know that he had been at New York, and could spik our language, which he proceeded to do, to the great pride of his countrymen, and our own astonishment at the remarkable forms of English speech to which he gave utterance.

V.

We set out from Porto Longone that night at eight o’clock, and next evening, driving through much-abated storm southward into calm waters and clear skies, reached Naples.  At noon, Monte Circeo where Circe led her disreputable life, was a majestic rock against blue heaven and broken clouds; after nightfall, and under the risen moon, Vesuvius crept softly up from the sea, and stood a graceful steep, with wreaths of lightest cloud upon its crest, and the city lamps circling far round its bay.

VII.

CERTAIN THINGS IN NAPLES.

I.

Perhaps some reader of mine who visited Naples under the old disorder of things, when the Bourbon and the Camorra reigned, will like to hear that the pitched battle which travellers formerly fought, in landing from their steamer, is now gone out of fashion.  Less truculent boatmen I never saw than those who rowed us ashore at Naples; they were so quiet and peaceful that they harmonized perfectly with that tranquil scene of drowsy-twinkling city lights, slumbrous mountains, and calm sea, and, as they dipped softly toward us in the glare of the steamer’s lamps, I could only think of Tennyson’s description:—­

  “And round about the keel with faces pale,
  Dark faces pale against the rosy flame,
  The mild-eyed melancholy lotus-eaters came.”