now, but then the people liked to see her, anyhow.  And so we went.  And every time the woman sang they hissed and laughed—­the whole magnificent house—­and as soon as she left the stage they called her on again with applause.  Once or twice she was encored five and six times in succession, and received with hisses when she appeared, and discharged with hisses and laughter when she had finished—­then instantly encored and insulted again!  And how the high-born knaves enjoyed it!  White-kidded gentlemen and ladies laughed till the tears came, and clapped their hands in very ecstacy when that unhappy old woman would come meekly out for the sixth time, with uncomplaining patience, to meet a storm of hisses!  It was the cruelest exhibition—­the most wanton, the most unfeeling.  The singer would have conquered an audience of American rowdies by her brave, unflinching tranquillity (for she answered encore after encore, and smiled and bowed pleasantly, and sang the best she possibly could, and went bowing off, through all the jeers and hisses, without ever losing countenance or temper:) and surely in any other land than Italy her sex and her helplessness must have been an ample protection to her—­she could have needed no other.  Think what a multitude of small souls were crowded into that theatre last night.  If the manager could have filled his theatre with Neapolitan souls alone, without the bodies, he could not have cleared less than ninety millions of dollars.  What traits of character must a man have to enable him to help three thousand miscreants to hiss, and jeer, and laugh at one friendless old woman, and shamefully humiliate her?  He must have all the vile, mean traits there are.  My observation persuades me (I do not like to venture beyond my own personal observation,) that the upper classes of Naples possess those traits of character.  Otherwise they may be very good people; I can not say.

Ascent of Vesuvius—­continued.

In this city of Naples, they believe in and support one of the wretchedest of all the religious impostures one can find in Italy—­the miraculous liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius.  Twice a year the priests assemble all the people at the Cathedral, and get out this vial of clotted blood and let them see it slowly dissolve and become liquid —­and every day for eight days, this dismal farce is repeated, while the priests go among the crowd and collect money for the exhibition.  The first day, the blood liquefies in forty-seven minutes—­the church is crammed, then, and time must be allowed the collectors to get around:  after that it liquefies a little quicker and a little quicker, every day, as the houses grow smaller, till on the eighth day, with only a few dozens present to see the miracle, it liquefies in four minutes.