We had thirty-one hours consecutively on the road between this and
Milan, and arrived here in a rather damaged condition. We live at the
top of this immense house, overlooking the port and sea, pleasantly and
airily enough, though it is no joke to get so high, and though the
apartment is rather vast and faded.
The old walks are pretty much the same as ever, except that they have
built behind the Peschiere on the San Bartolomeo hill, and changed the
whole town towards San Pietro d'Arena, where we seldom went. The Bisagno
looks just the same, strong just now, and with very little water in it.
Vicoli stink exactly as they used to, and are fragrant with the same old
flavour of very rotten cheese kept in very hot blankets. The Mezzaro
pervades them as before. The old Jesuit college in the Strada Nuova is
under the present government the Hotel de Ville, and a very splendid
caffe with a terrace garden has arisen between it and Palavicini's old
palace. Another new and handsome caffe has been built in the Piazza
Carlo Felice, between the old caffe of the Bei Arti (where Fletcher
stopped for the bouquets in the green times, when we went to the ----'s
party), and the Strada Carlo Felice. The old beastly gate and guardhouse
on the Albaro road are still in their dear old beastly state, and the
whole of that road is just as it was. The man without legs is still in
the Strada Nuova; but the beggars in general are all cleared off, and
our old one-armed Belisario made a sudden evaporation a year or two ago.
I am going to the Peschiere to-day. The puppets are here, and the opera
is open, but only with a buffo company, and without a buffet. We went to
the Scala, where they did an opera of Verdi's, called "Il Trovatore,"
and a poor enough ballet. The whole performance miserable indeed. I wish
you were here to take some of the old walks. It is quite strange to walk
about alone. Good-bye, my dear Georgy. Pray tell me how Kate is. I
rather fancy from her letter, though I scarcely know why, that she is
not quite as well as she was at Boulogne. I was charmed with your
account of the Plornishghenter and everything and everybody else. Kiss
them all for me.
Ever most affectionately yours.
[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]
HOTEL DES ETRANGERS, NAPLES,
_Friday Night, Nov. 4th, 1853._