In further remarks on Paestum I may say there is a city wall in wonderful preservation, one of the gates of which is partly entire and displays the figure of a Syren under the architrave, but the antiquity of the sculpture is doubted, though not that of the inner part of the gate—­so at least thinks Sir William, our best authority on such matters.  Many antiquities have been, and many more probably will be, discovered.  Paestum is a place which adds dignity to the peddling trade of the ordinary antiquarian.

March 19.—­This morning we set off at seven for Naples; we observed remains of an aqueduct in a narrow, apparently designed for the purpose of leading water to La Cava, but had no time to conjecture on the subject, and took our road back to Pompeii, and passed through two towns of the same name, Nocera dei [Cristiani] and Nocera dei Pagani.[521] In the latter village the Saracens obtained a place of refuge, from which it takes the name.  It is also said that the circumstance is kept in memory by the complexion and features of this second Nocera, which are peculiarly of the African caste and tincture.  After we passed Pompeii, where the continued severity of the weather did not permit us, according to our purpose, to take another survey, we saw in the adjacent village between us and Portici the scene of two assassinations, still kept in remembrance.  The one I believe was from the motive of plunder.  The head of the assassin was set up after his execution upon a pillar, which still exists, and it remained till the skull rotted to pieces.  The other was a story less in the common style, and of a more interesting character:—­A farmer of an easy fortune, and who might be supposed to leave to his daughter, a very pretty girl and an only child, a fortune thought in the village very considerable.  She was, under the hope of sharing such a prize, made up to by a young man in the neighbourhood, handsome, active, and of a very good general character.  He was of that sort of person who are generally successful among women, and the girl was supposed to have encouraged his addresses; but her father, on being applied to, gave him a direct and positive refusal.  The gallant resolved to continue his addresses in hopes of overcoming this obstacle by his perseverance, but the father’s opposition seemed only to increase by the lover’s pertinacity.  At length, as the father walked one evening smoking his pipe upon the terrace before his door, the lover unhappily passed by, and, struck with the instant thought that the obstacle to the happiness of his life was now entirely in his own power, he rushed upon the father, pierced him with three mortal stabs of his knife, and killed him dead on the spot, and made his escape to the mountains.  What was most remarkable was that he was protected against the police, who went, as was their duty, in quest of him, by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, who afforded him both shelter and such food as he required, looking on him less as a wilful criminal than an unfortunate man, who had been surprised by a strong and almost irresistible temptation.  So congenial, at this moment, is the love of vengeance to an Italian bosom, and though chastised in general by severe punishment, so much are criminals sympathised with by the community.