Perhaps some reader of mine who visited Naples under the old disorder
of things, when the Bourbon and the Camorra reigned, will like to hear
that the pitched battle which travellers formerly fought, in landing
from their steamer, is now gone out of fashion. Less truculent boatmen
I never saw than those who rowed us ashore at Naples; they were so
quiet and peaceful that they harmonized perfectly with that tranquil
scene of drowsy-twinkling city lights, slumbrous mountains, and
calm sea, and, as they dipped softly toward us in the glare of the
steamer's lamps, I could only think of Tennyson's description:--
"And round about the keel with faces pale,
Dark faces pale against the rosy flame,
The mild-eyed melancholy lotus-eaters came."
The mystery of this placidity had been already solved by our captain,
whom I had asked what price I should bargain to pay from the steamer
to the shore. "There is a tariff," said he, "and the boatmen keep to
it. The Neapolitans are good people, (_buona gente_,) and only needed
justice to make them obedient to the laws." I must say that I found
this to be true. The fares of all public conveyances are now fixed,
and the attempts which drivers occasionally make to cheat you, seem
to be rather the involuntary impulses of old habit than deliberate
intentions to do you wrong. You pay what is due, and as your man
merely rumbles internally when you turn away, you must be a very timid
_signorin_, indeed, if you buy his content with any thing more. I
fancy that all these things are now much better managed in Italy than
in America, only we grumble at them there and stand them in silence at
home. Every one can recall frightful instances of plunder, in which
he was the victim, at New York--in which the robbery had none of the
neatness of an operation, as it often has in Italy, but was a brutal
mutilation. And then as regards civility from the same kind of people
in the two countries, there is no comparison that holds in favor of
us. All questions are readily and politely answered in Italian travel,
and the servants of companies are required to be courteous to the
public whereas, one is only too glad to receive a silent snub from
such people at home.