I shall remember our trip to Vesuvius for many a day—­partly because of its sight-seeing experiences, but chiefly on account of the fatigue of the journey.  Two or three of us had been resting ourselves among the tranquil and beautiful scenery of the island of Ischia, eighteen miles out in the harbor, for two days; we called it “resting,” but I do not remember now what the resting consisted of, for when we got back to Naples we had not slept for forty-eight hours.  We were just about to go to bed early in the evening, and catch up on some of the sleep we had lost, when we heard of this Vesuvius expedition.  There was to be eight of us in the party, and we were to leave Naples at midnight.  We laid in some provisions for the trip, engaged carriages to take us to Annunciation, and then moved about the city, to keep awake, till twelve.  We got away punctually, and in the course of an hour and a half arrived at the town of Annunciation.  Annunciation is the very last place under the sun.  In other towns in Italy the people lie around quietly and wait for you to ask them a question or do some overt act that can be charged for—­but in Annunciation they have lost even that fragment of delicacy; they seize a lady’s shawl from a chair and hand it to her and charge a penny; they open a carriage door, and charge for it—­shut it when you get out, and charge for it; they help you to take off a duster—­two cents; brush your clothes and make them worse than they were before—­two cents; smile upon you—­two cents; bow, with a lick-spittle smirk, hat in hand —­two cents; they volunteer all information, such as that the mules will arrive presently—­two cents—­warm day, sir—­two cents—­take you four hours to make the ascent—­two cents.  And so they go.  They crowd you —­infest you—­swarm about you, and sweat and smell offensively, and look sneaking and mean, and obsequious.  There is no office too degrading for them to perform, for money.  I have had no opportunity to find out any thing about the upper classes by my own observation, but from what I hear said about them I judge that what they lack in one or two of the bad traits the canaille have, they make up in one or two others that are worse.  How the people beg!—­many of them very well dressed, too.

I said I knew nothing against the upper classes by personal observation.  I must recall it!  I had forgotten.  What I saw their bravest and their fairest do last night, the lowest multitude that could be scraped up out of the purlieus of Christendom would blush to do, I think.  They assembled by hundreds, and even thousands, in the great Theatre of San Carlo, to do—­what?  Why, simply, to make fun of an old woman—­to deride, to hiss, to jeer at an actress they once worshipped, but whose beauty is faded now and whose voice has lost its former richness.  Every body spoke of the rare sport there was to be.  They said the theatre would be crammed, because Frezzolini was going to sing.  It was said she could not sing well,