A DRIVE INTO THE COUNTRY.--A FIGHT WITH A VETTURINO.--THE EFFECT OF
EATING "HARD BOILED EGGS."--WHAT THEY SAW AT PAESTUM.--FIVE TEMPLES
AND ONE "MILL."
To hire a carriage in Naples for any length of time is by no means
an easy thing. It is necessary to hold long commune with the
proprietor, to exert all the wiles of masterly diplomacy to circumvent
cunning by cunning, to exert patience, skill, and eloquence. After a
decision has been reached, there is but one way in which you can hold
your vetturino to his bargain, and that is to bind him to it by
securing his name to a contract. Every vetturino has a printed form
all ready. If he can't write his name, he does something equally
binding and far simpler. He dips his thumb in the ink-bottle and
stamps it on the paper. If that is not his signature, what else
is it?
"Thus," said one, "Signor Adam signed the marriage-contract with
Signora Eva."
After incredible difficulties a contract had been drawn up and
signed by the horny thumb of a certain big vetturino, who went by the
name of "II Piccolo." It was to the effect that, for a certain
specified sum, Il Piccolo should take the party to Paestum and back
with a detour to Sorrento.
It was a most delightful morning. All were in the best of spirits.
So they started. On for miles through interminable streets of houses
that bordered the circular shore, through crowds of sheep, droves of
cattle, dense masses of human beings, through which innumerable
caleches darted like meteors amid the stars of heaven. Here came the
oxen of Southern Italy, stately, solemn, long-horned, cream-colored;
there marched great droves of Sorrento hogs--the hog of hogs--a
strange but not ill-favored animal, thick in hide, leaden in color,
hairless as a hippopotamus. The flesh of the Sorrento hog bears the
same relation to common pork that "Lubin's Extrait" bears to the
coarse scent of a country grocery. A pork-chop from the Sorrento
animal comes to the palate with the force of a new revelation; it is
the highest possibility of pork--the apotheosis of the pig! Long lines
of macaroni-cooks doing an enormous business; armies of dealers in
anisette; crowds of water-carriers; throngs of fishermen, carrying
nets and singing merry songs--"Ecco mi!" "Ecco la!"--possible
Massaniellos every man of them, I assure you, Sir. And--enveloping
all, mingling with all, jostling all, busy with the busiest, idle
with the idlest, noisy with the noisest, jolly with the jolliest,
the fat, oily, swarthy, rosy--(etc., for further epithets see
preceding pages)--_Lazaroni_!
Every moment produces new effects in the ever-shifting scenes of
Naples. Here is the reverse of monotony; if any thing becomes
wearisome, it is the variety. Here is the monotony of incessant
change. The whole city, with all its vast suburbs, lives on the
streets.
The Senator wiped his fevered brow. He thought that for crowds,
noise, tumult, dash, hurry-skurry, gayety, life, laughter, joyance,
and all that incites to mirth, and all that stirs the soul, even New
York couldn't hold a candle to Naples.
Rabelais ought to have been a Neapolitan.
Then, as the city gradually faded into the country, the winding road
opened up before them with avenues of majestic trees--overhanging,
arching midway--forming long aisles of shade. Myrtles, that grew up
into trees, scented the air. Interminable groves of figs and oranges
spread away up the hill, intermingled with the darker foliage of the
olive or cypress.
The mountains come lovingly down to bathe their feet in the sea. The
road winds among them. There is a deep valley around which rise lofty
hills topped with white villages or ancient towers, or dotted with
villas which peep forth from amid dense groves. As far as the eye can
reach the vineyards spread away. Not as in France or Germany,
miserable sandy fields with naked poles or stunted bushes; but
vast extents of trees, among which the vines leap in wild luxuriance,
hanging in long festoons from branch to branch, or intertwining with
the foliage.
"I don't know how it is," said the Senator, "but I'm cussed if I feel
as if this here country was ground into the dust. If it is, it is no
bad thing to go through the mill. I don't much wonder that these
_I_talians don't emigrate. If I owned a farm in this neighborhood I'd
stand a good deal of squeezin' before I'd sell out and go anywheres
else."
At evening they reached Salerno, a watering-place the sea-coast, and
Naples in miniature.
There is no town in Italy without its opera-house or theatre, and
among the most vivid and most precious of scenic delights the
pantomime commends itself to the Italian bosom. Of course there was a
pantomime at Salerno. It was a mite of a house; on a rough calculation
thirty feet by twenty; a double tier of boxes; a parquette about
twelve feet square; and a stage of about two-thirds that size.
Yet behold what the ingenuity of man can accomplish! On that stage
there were performed all the usual exhibitions of human passion, and
they even went into the production of great scenic displays, among
which a great storm in the forest was most prominent.
Polichinello was in his glory! On this occasion the joke of the
evening was an English traveller. The ideal Englishman on the
Continent is a never-failing source of merriment. The presence of
five Americans gave additional piquancy to the show. The corpulent,
double-chinned, red-nosed Englishman, with knee-breeches,
shoe-buckles, and absurd coat, stamped, swore, frowned, doubled up
his fists, knocked down waiters, scattered gold right and left, was
arrested, was tried, was fined; but came forth unterrified from every
persecution, to rave, to storm, to fight, to lavish money as before.
How vivid were the flashes of lightning produced by touching off some
cotton-wool soaked in alcohol! How terrific the peals of thunder
produced by the vibrations of a piece of sheet-iron! Whatever was
deficient in mechanical apparatus was readily supplied by the powerful
imagination of the Italians, who, though they had often seen all this
before, were not at all weary of looking at it, but enjoyed the
thousandth repetition as much as the first.
Those merry Italians!
There is an old, old game played by every vetturino.
When our travellers had returned to the hotel, and were enjoying
themselves in general conversation, the vetturino bowed himself in.
He was a good deal exercised in his mind. With a great preamble he
came to his point. As they intended to start early in the morning,
he supposed they would not object to settle their little bill now.
"_What_!" shouted Buttons, jumping up. "What bill? Settle a bill?
_We_ settle a bill? Are you mad?"
"Your excellencies intend to settle the bill, of course," said the
vetturino, with much phlegm.
"Our excellencies never dreamed of any such thing."
"Not pay? Ha! ha! You jest, Signor."
"Do you see this?" said Buttons, solemnly producing the contract.
"Well?" responded Il Piccolo.
"What is this?"
"Our contract."
"Do you know what it is that you have engaged to do?"
"To take you to Paestum."
"Yes; to Paestum and back, with a detour to Sorrento. Moreover, you
engage to supply us with three meals a day and lodgings, to all of
which we engage to pay a certain sum. What, then," cried Buttons,
elevating his voice, "in the name of all the blessed saints and
apostles, do you mean by coming to us about hotel bills?"
"Signor," said the vetturino, meekly, "when I made that contract I
fear I was too sanguine."
"Too sanguine!"
"And I have changed my mind since."
"Indeed?"
"I find that I am a poor man."
"Did you just find that out?"
"And that if I carry out this it will ruin me."
"Well?"
"So you'll have to pay for the hotel expenses yourselves," said
Il Piccolo, with desperation.
"I will forgive this insufferable insolence," said Buttons,
Majestically, "on condition that it never occurs again. Do you
see that?" he cried, in louder tones.
And he unfolded the contract, which he had been holding in his hand,
and sternly pointed to the big blotch of ink that was supposed to be
II Piccolo's signature.
"_Do you see that_!" he cried, in a voice of thunder.
The Italian did not speak.
"And _that_?" he cried, pointing to the signature of the witness.
The Italian opened his month to speak, but was evidently nonplused.
"You are in my power!" said Buttons, in a fine melodramatic tone, and
with a vivacity of gesture that was not without its effect on the
Italian. He folded the contract, replaced it in his breast-pocket, and
slapped it with fearful emphasis. Every slap seemed to go to the heart
of Il Piccolo.
[Illustration: Do You See That?]
"If you dare to try to back out of this agreement I'll have you up
before the police. I'll enforce the awful penalty that punishes the
non-performance of a solemn engagement. I'll have you arrested by
the Royal Guards in the name of His Majesty the King, and cause you
to be incarcerated in the lowest dungeons of St. Elmo. Besides, I
won't pay you for the ride thus far."
With this last remark Buttons walked to the door, and without another
word opened it, and motioned to Il Piccolo to leave. The vetturino
departed in silence.
On the following morning he made his appearance as pleasant as though
nothing had happened.
The carriage rolled away from Salerno. Broad fields stretched away on
every side. Troops of villagers marched forth to their labor. As they
went on they saw women working in the fields, and men lolling on the
fences.
"Do you call that the stuff for a free country?" cried the Senator,
whose whole soul rose up in arms against such a sight. "Air these
things men? or can such slaves as these women seem to be give birth
to any thing but slaves?"
"Bravo!" cried Buttons.
The Senator was too indignant to say more, and so fell into a fit of
musing.
"Dick," said Buttons, after a long pause, "you are as pale as a ghost.
I believe you must be beginning to feel the miasma from these plains."
"Oh no," said Dick, dolefully; "something worse."
"What's the matter?"
"Do you remember the eggs we had for dinner last evening?"
"Yes."
"That's what's the matter," said Dick, with a groan. "I can't explain;
but this, perhaps, will tell thee all I feel."
He took from his pocket a paper and handed it to Buttons. Around the
margin were drawn etchings of countless fantastic figures,
illustrating the following lines:
A NIGHTMARE.
"_Gorgons, and hydras, and chimeras dire_."
BY A VICTIM.
Eggs! Eggs!! Eggs!!!
Hard boiled eggs for tea!
And oh! the horrible nightmare dream
They brought to luckless me!
The hippopotamus came;
He sat upon my chest:
The hippopotamus roared "I'll spot him!" as
He trampled upon my breast.
The big iguanodon hunched
And rooted in under me:
The big iguanodon raised by that pan o' done
Overdone eggs for tea.
The ichthyosaurus tried
To roll me up in a ball;
While all the three were grinning at me,
And pounding me, bed and all.
Hip! hip! hurrah!
It was a little black pig,
And a big bull-frog, and a bobtailed dog--
All of them dancing a jig.
And oh, the snakes! the snakes!
And the boa constrictor too!
And the cobra capello--a terrible fellow--
Came to my horrified view.
Snakes and horrible beasts,
Frog, pig, and dog
Hustled me, pushed me, tickled me, crushed me,
Rolled me about like a log.
The little blue devils came on;
They rode on a needle's point;
And the big giraffe, with asthmatic laugh,
And legs all out of joint.
Bats crawled into my ears,
Hopping about in my brain;
And grizzly bears rode up on mares,
And then rode down again.
An antediluvian roared,
In the form of a Brahmin bull;
And a Patagonian squeezed an onion,
Filling my aching eyes full.
The three blue bottles that sat
Upon the historical stones
Sang, "Hey diddle diddle"--two on a fiddle,
The other one on the bones.
"Whoo! whoo! whoo!
Get up, get up, you beauty!
Here come the shaved monkeys, a-ridlng on donkeys,
Fresh from Bobberty Shooty."
They raised me up in the air,
Bed, body, and all,
And carried me soon to the man in the moon,
At the siege of Sebastopol.
Down, down, down,
Round, round, round,
A whirlpool hurled me out of the world,
And on, no bottom I found.
Down, down, down,
Whirl, whirl, whirl,
And the Florentine boar was pacing the shore,
His tail all out of curl.
He smoked my favorite pipe,
He blew a cloud of smoke,
He pulled me out with his porcine snout,
And hugging him, I awoke.
"Why, Dick," cried the Senator, "what precious nonsense!"
"It was intended to be so," said Dick.
"Well, but you might as well put on an _idee_. It must have some
meaning."
"Not a bit of it. It has no meaning; that is, no more than a dream
or a nightmare."
The Senator now began to discuss the nature of poetry, but was
suddenly interrupted by a shout--
"The Temples!"
The country about Paestum is one of the most beautiful in the world.
Between the mountains and the sea lies a luxuriant plain, and in the
middle of it is the ruined city. The outlines of walls and remnants of
gates are there. Above all rise five ancient edifices. They strolled
carelessly around. The marble floors of a good many private houses
are yet visible, but the stupendous temples are the chief attractions
here; above all, the majestic shrine of Neptune.
It was while standing with head thrown back, eyes and mouth opened
wide, and thoughts all taken up with a deep calculation, that the
Senator was startled by a sudden noise.
Turning hastily he saw something that made him run with the speed of
the wind toward the place where the noise arose. Buttons and Dick were
surrounded by a crowd of fierce-looking men, who were making very
threatening demonstrations. There were at least fifteen. As the
Senator ran up from one direction, so came up Mr. Figgs and the Doctor
from another.
"What is this?" cried the Senator, bursting in upon the crowd.
A huge Italian was shaking his fist in Buttons's face, and stamping
and gesticulating violently.
"These men say we must pay five piastres each to them for strolling
about their ground, and Buttons has told this big fellow that he will
give them five kicks each. There'll be some kind of a fight. They
belong to the Camorra." Dick said all this in a hurried under-tone.
"Camorry, what's that--brigands?"
"All the same."
"They're not armed, anyhow."
Just at this moment Buttons said something which seemed to sting the
Italians to the soul, for with a wild shout they rushed forward. The
Doctor drew out his revolver. Instantly Dick snatched it from him,
and rushing forward, drove back the foremost. None of them were armed.
"Stand off!" he cried, in Italian. "The fight is between this big
fellow and my friend. If any one of you interferes I'll put a bullet
through him."
The Italians fell back cursing. Buttons instantly divested himself of
his coat, vest, and collar. The Italian waited with a grim smile.
At one end were the Senator, the Doctor, Mr. Figgs; at the other the
Italian ruffians. In the middle Buttons and his big antagonist. Near
them Dick with his pistol.
The scene that followed had better be described in Dick's own words,
as he pencilled them in his memorandum-book, from time to time,
keeping a sharp lookout with his pistol also. Afterward the
description was retouched:
_Great mill at Paestum, between E. BUTTONS, Esq., Gentleman, and
Italian party called BEPPO_.
_1st Round_.--Beppo defiant, no attitude at all. Buttons assumed an
elegant pose. Beppo made a succession of wild strokes without any
aim, which were parried without effort. After which Buttons landed
four blows, one on each peeper, one on the smeller, and one on the
mug.
_First blood for Buttons_. Beppo considerably surprised. Rushed
furiously at Buttons, arms flying everywhere, struck over Buttons's
head. Buttons lightly made obeisance, and then fired a hundred-pounder
on Beppo's left auricular, which had the effect of bringing him to the
grass. _First knock down for Buttons_.
_2nd Round_.--Foreign population quite dumbfounded. Americans amused
but not excited. One hundred to one on Buttons eagerly offered, but no
takers. Beppo jumped to his feet like a wild cat. Eyes encircled with
ebon aurioles, olfactory quite demolished. Made a rush at Buttons,
who, being a member of the Dodge Club, dodged him, and landed a
rattler on the jugular, which again sent foreign party to grass.
_3d Round_.--Nimble to the scratch. Beppo badly mashed and raving.
Buttons unscathed and laughing; Beppo more cautious made a faint
attempt to get into Buttons. No go. Tried a little sparing, which
was summarily ended by a cannonade from Buttons directly in
his countenance.
_4th Round_.--Foreigners wild. Yelling to their man to go in. Don't
understand a single one of the rules of the P.R. Very benighted.
Need missionaries. Evinced strong determination to go in themselves,
but where checked by attitude of referee, who threatened to blow out
brains of first man that interfered. Beppo's face magnified
considerably. Appearance not at all prepossessing. Much distressed but
furious. Made a bound at Buttons, who calmly, and without any apparent
effort, met him with a terrific upper cut, which made the Italian's
gigantic frame tremble like a ship under the stroke of a big wave. He
tottered, and swung his arms, trying to regain his balance, when
another annihilator most cleanly administered by Buttons laid him low.
A great tumult rose among the foreigners. Beppo lay panting with no
determination to come to the scratch. At the expiration of usual time,
opponent not appearing. Buttons was proclaimed victor. Beppo very much
mashed. Foreigners very greatly cowed. After waiting a short time
Buttons resumed his garments and walked off with his friends.
[Illustration: The Mill At Paestum.]
After the victory the travellers left Paestum on their return.
The road that turns off to Sorrento is the most beautiful in the
world. It winds along the shore with innumerable turnings, climbing
hills, descending into valleys, twining around precipices. There are
scores of the prettiest villages under the sun, ivy-covered ruins,
frowning fortresses, lofty towers, and elegant villas.
At last Sorrento smiles out from a valley which is proverbial for
beauty, where, within its shelter of hills, neither the hot blast
of midsummer nor the cold winds of winter can ever disturb its
repose. This is the valley of perpetual spring, where fruits
forever grow, and the seasons all blend together, so that the same
orchard shows trees in blossom and bearing fruit.