The road from Naples to Herculaneum is, in fact, one long street; it
hardly ceases to be city in Naples till it is town at Portici, and in
the interval it is suburb, running between palatial lines of villas,
which all have their names ambitiously painted over their doors. Great
part of the distance this street is bordered by the bay, and, as far
as this is the case, it is picturesque, as every thing is belonging to
marine life in Italy. Sea-faring people go lounging up and down among
the fishermen's boats drawn up on the shore, and among the fishermen's
wives making nets, while the fishermen's children play and clamber
everywhere, and over all flap and flutter the clothes hung on poles
to dry. In this part of the street there are, of course, oysters, and
grapes, and oranges, and cactus-pulps, and cutlery, and iced drinks
to sell at various booths; and Commerce is exceedingly dramatic and
boisterous over the bargains she offers; and equally, of course,
murderous drinking shops lurk at intervals along the pavement, and
lure into their recesses mariners of foreign birth, briefly ashore
from their ships. The New York Coffee House is there to attract my
maritime fellow-countrymen, and I know that if I look into that place
of refreshment I shall see their honest, foolish faces flushed with
drink, and with the excitement of buying the least they can for the
most money. Poor souls! they shall drink that pleasant morning away
in the society of Antonino the best of Neapolitans, and at midnight,
emptied of every soldo, shall arise, wrung with a fearful suspicion
of treachery, and wander away under Antonino's guidance to seek the
protection of the Consul; or, taking the law into their own hands,
shall proceed to clean out, _more Americano_, the New York Coffee
House, when Antonino shall develop into one of the landlords, and
deal them the most artistic stab in Naples: handsome, worthy Antonino;
tender-eyed, subtle, pitiless!