WHEN we left Naples in January the snow lay whitely upon the scarred poll of Vesuvius. Yet, as we drove to the station, we were beset by boys and girls running between the wheels of our carriage and ducking under the horses’ heads, clamorously offering bouquets of roses, violets and camellias that had blossomed in the open gardens. To save the bones, for which they showed no regard, each of us loaded herself with an immense bunch of flowers she was tempted, a dozen times before night, to throw out of the car-window. I counted ten japonicas in mine—white, creamy, and delicate pink—and I paid the black-eyed vender fifty centimes, ten cents, for all.

We ran down to the sea-shore again in April, the laughing, fecund April, that rioted over the Campagna the day we went to Tusculum. Caput was detained in Rome, and I acted as chaperone to five of the brightest, merriest American girls that ever set off upon a pleasure trip. “A Sorosis Lark,” one named it, while another was inquisitive as to the kinship of this bird to AthenÉ’s owl.

We took the railway from Naples to Pompeii. Used as we were to the odd jumble of old and new forced upon our notice on all public lines of travel in the Old World, it yet gave us a queer thrill to hear the station at Pompeii called out in the mechanical sing-song that announces our arrival at “Richmond” or “Jersey City.” No. 27 was already engaged, much to our regret, but he recognized us, and introduced his comrade, No. 18, who, he guaranteed, “would give us satisfaction.” A jolly, kindly old fellow we found him to be, more garrulous than his friend, but so staid and respectable that, when I grew tired, I committed the four younger ladies to his guardianship, and sat me down in company with my dear, and for so long, fellow-traveller, Miss M——, upon the top step of the Temple of Jupiter to rest, promising to rejoin the party at the house of Glaucus.

We spread our shawls upon the marble to make the seat safe and comfortable, and when the voices of guide and girls were lost in the distance, had, to all appearance, the exhumed city for our own. Vesuvius was slightly restless at this date. The night before, we had rushed out upon the balcony of the hotel parlor at a warning cry, and seen the canopy of smoke above the mountain blood-red with reflections from the crater. Now, as we watched the destroyer, fast bulging volumes of vapor, white and gray, rose against the blue heavens. We pictured, by their help, the Cimmerian gloom of the night-in-day that rained ashes and scalding water upon fair and populous Pompeii. Night of eighteen centuries to temple, mart and dwelling, leaving, when the morning came, the bleached skeleton we now looked upon. “The City of the Dead!” repeated Sir Walter Scott, over and again, as he surveyed the disinterred ruins. Life seems absolutely suspended within its gates. While we sat there, we heard neither twittering bird nor chirp of insect. Even the lithe green lizards that frisk over and in other ruined walls, shun these, blasted by the hot showers,—out of mind for forty generations of living men.

We must have rested thus, and chatted softly of these things, for fully half an hour, when a large party, appearing suddenly in the echoless silence, from behind the walls of a neighboring court-yard, stared curiously at us, and we remembered that our being there without a guide was an infringement of rules. The custodian of the strangers assumed, politely, that we had lost our way, and when we named our rendezvous, directed us how to get thither by the shortest route. We were properly grateful, and when his back was turned, chose our own way and time for doing as we pleased. Were we not habituÉs of Pompeii—friends of older inhabitants than he dreamed of in his round?

We were too early, after all, for the rest, although long after the hour agreed upon for the meeting. While Miss M—— sallied forth on a private exploration of the vicinity, I sat in the shadow of the wall upon the step of the peristyle once adorned by Nydia’s flower-borders, and re-read the description of the scene between her and Glaucus when, upon this very spot, he told the blind girl of his love for the Neapolitan, summoning her from her graceful task of “sprinkling the thirsting plants which seemed to brighten at her approach.” He had bidden her seek him in the triclinum over there—“the chamber of Leda” when she had gathered the flowers he would send to Ione. Here, too, she gave him the philtre that was to win his love, and robbed him of his senses.

The laggards rejoined us before I had become impatient. Gay, fresh voices put phantoms and musing to flight. All were in high good humor. Their guide had allowed them to loiter and investigate to their heart’s content, and presented each with a bit of seasoned soap eighteen hundred years old, which, by the way, we tried that night and proved by the “lathering” to be saponaceous and of good quality. He had dashed their complacency by remarking, without the remotest suspicion that he was uttering dispraise, that he always recognized Americans by their nasal articulation, but reinstated himself in their favor and themselves, also, by expressing surprise and delight that all four could converse fluently in his native tongue. We extended our ramble beyond the Villa of Diomed into the Street of Tombs—the Via Appia—that, in former times, extended, without a break, all the way to Rome.

Was it in ostentatious display of their family mausoleums, or in callous contempt of natural loves and human griefs, or, from a desire to honor the manes of the departed, and remind the living of their mortality, that the traveler to these ancient cities entered them between a double file of the dead? Was there recognition, however vague, of the great fact that, through Death we gain Life?

We were to spend the night at Castellamare, and having, through a provoking blunder for which we could only blame ourselves, missed the five o’clock train, were obliged to remain in the Pompeii station until nine. We had lunched at the restaurant—and a villainous lunch it was—and being hungry and weary, and out of patience with our stupidity, would have been held excusable by charitable people had we been slightly cross. I record that we were not, as an additional proof of the Tapleyish turn of the feminine disposition. I take no credit to myself. I was tired beyond the ability to complain. Laid upon a bench, cushioned by the spare wraps of the party, my head in Prima’s lap, I beheld in admiration I lacked energy to express, the unflagging good-humor of my charges; the “small, sweet courtesies” that made harmless play of badinage and repartee. They called up a boy of ten, the son of the station-master, from his hiding-place behind the door communicating with the family apartments, and talked to him of his life and likings. He was civil, but not clean—a shrewd, knavish sprite, judging from his physiognomy, but a fond brother to the little sister who soon crept after him. She wore a single garment that had, probably, never been whole or neat in her existence of two years. Even “our girls” could not pet her. But they spoke to her kindly as she planted herself before them on her two naked feet, her neck encircled by her brother’s arm, and gave her bon-bons. The boy bade her say, “Grazie!” and supplemented her lisp with “Tank ’oo!” and “Goot morning!”—his whole stock of English.

The four hours passed at last, and we quitted the dim waiting-room for pitchy darkness and pouring rain outside. At Castellamare, we were set down upon an open platform. The clouds were falling upon us in sheets; the wind caught savagely at our light sun-umbrellas, our only defence against the storm. The pavement was ankle-deep in water, and it was ten o’clock at night. We had been recommended to go to Miss Baker’s excellent pension on the hill, but it was a full mile away, and we were wet in an instant. In the dismayed confusion, nobody knew just how it happened, or who first spoke the word of doom, but we packed ourselves and dripping garments into carriages and were driven to the HÔtel Royale. The land-lady—or housekeeper—stationed in the vestibule, took in our plight and her advantage at one fell glance. She met us with a feline smile, and we were hers.

“My mother is not well. We must have a room, with a fire, for her, at once. And not too high up!” said Prima, breathlessly, not waiting to mop her wet face and hair.

Felina smiled more widely; jingled her keys and studied the red rosette of a slipper she put forward for that purpose.

“I have rooms—certainly.”

“Let us see them—please! This lady must not stand here in her wet clothes!” cried all in one voice.

“Here” was a lofty passage whose stone floor was swept by draughts of damp air.

“She will catch her death of cold!” subjoined Prima, frantic.

Felina put out another slipper; assured herself that the rosette was upon it, also. “I have rooms. One large. Two small. On third floor.”

I will not prolong the scene. We stood where we were, in opposition to our entreaties to be allowed to enter the salle, while the negotiation was pending, until we agreed to take her three rooms, unseen, at her prices. Extortionate we knew them to be and said as much to Felina’s face, eliciting a tigerish expansion of the thin lips, and—“As Mesdames like. I have said I have three rooms. One large. Two small.”

Up one hundred (counted) stone stairs we trudged, to a barn of a room, the sea breaking and the winds screaming against the outer walls. There we learned that neither fire nor hot supper was to be our portion that night, and that for meals served in bed-chambers an extra sum must be paid.

“But you said we could not have supper down-stairs at this hour! We have had no dinner. To say nothing of being wet to the skin. Cannot you send up a bowl of hot soup?”

Of course the plea dashed vainly against her smile.

“But,” a touch of disdain for my weakness mingling with it, as she saw the girls wrap me in dry blankets pulled from the bed, lay me upon the sofa, and chafe my feet—“Madame can have a cup of tea should she desire it.”

A very grand butler brought up the tea-equipage at eleven o’clock. Spread upon a broad platter were as many slices of pale, cold mutton as there were starving guests. A roll apiece was in the bread-tray. A canine hunger was upon us. Our teeth chattered with cold and nervousness. We chafed under the knowledge of being cheated, outwitted, outraged. Yet when the supper was set out upon the round table wheeled up to my couch, and we recognized in it the climax of our woes, we shouted with laughter until the waiter grinned in sympathy.

Then—we made a night of it—for two hours. We drained tea-pot and kettle, and would have chewed the tea-leaves had any strength remained in them; drank all the blue milk, and ate every lump of sugar; left not a crumb of roll or meat to tell the tale of the abuse of hotel and padrona with which we seasoned their dryness. We told stories; held discussions, historical, philosophical, and theological; laughed handsomely at each other’s bon-mots, and were secretly vain of our own,—wrapped, all the while, from head to heels in shawls, blankets, and bedspreads, the girls with pillows under their feet to avoid the chill of the flooring. The destined occupants of the small rooms kissed us “Good night,” at last. Prima—still fuming, poor child! and marveling audibly what report she should make to him whose latest words were an exhortation “upon no account to let Mamma take cold,”—tucked me up in one of the single beds, and pinned the flimsy curtains together. They swayed and billowed in the gusts rushing between the joints of the casements. The surf-roar was deafening; the wash of the waves so distinct and sibilant, I fancied sometimes I heard it gurgling over the floor. It was futile to think of sleep, but, after the fatigue and excitement of the day, I watched out the hours between our late bed-time and the dawn, not unhappily.

Castellamare is the ancient StabiÆ—or, more correctly speaking—it occupied the site of that ill-starred town destroyed by the earthquake that forced from Vesuvius ashes and boiling water-spouts upon Pompeii. Here perished the elder Pliny, suffocated by the mephitic vapors of the eruption. By morning the storm had exhausted itself. From my windows I looked down upon the spot where Pliny died, and over a sea of the matchless blue no one will believe in who sees the Bay of Naples in pictures only. Overhead, a sky whose serenity had in it no reminiscence of last night’s rage, bowed over the smiling earth.

We paid for our supper,—a franc for each bit of pallid mutton; half-a-franc for each roll, and as much for every cup of tea; for “service”—two francs each;—for lodgings, five francs for each hard bed, and at the like rate for the stale eggs, burnt toast, and thick chocolate that formed our breakfast. Then, heedless of Felina’s representations that “strangers were always cheated in the town,” we sent out an Italian-speaking committee of two, who hired a carriage and horses at half the sum for which she offered hers, and were off for Sorrento. The drive between the two towns is justly noted for its beauty and variety. The play of prismatic lights upon the sea was exquisitely lovely: Capri was a great amethyst; Ischia and Procida milk-opals in the softly-colored distance, while on, above and below the ridge along which ran the carriage-road, lay Fairy Land—the Delectable Mountains—Heaven come down to earth! Mulberry trees looped together for long miles by swaying vines laden with young grapes; orange and fig-orchards in full bearing; olive-groves, silvery-gray after the rain; all manner of flowering trees, shrubs, and plants; lordly castles upon the high hills; vine-draped cottages nestling in vales and hollows; ravines, dark with green shadows, that let us catch only stray glimpses of flashing torrents and cascades, spanned by bridges built by Augustus or Marcus Aurelius; under our wheels a road of firmest rock, without rut or pebble; between us and the steeps on the verge of which we drove—breast-high parapets adding to our enjoyment of the wonderful scene the quietness of perfect security against the chance of mishap—these were some of the features of the seven most beautiful miles in Southern Europe. The sea-breeze was fresh, not rude, the sky speckless, but the heat temperate.

If we had sought a thorough contrast to the experiences of the previous evening, we could not have attained our end more triumphantly than by pitching our moving tent during our stay in Sorrento at the Hotel Tramontana. It includes under its stretch of roofs the house of Tasso, where he dwelt with his widowed sister, from June, 1577, until the summer of the ensuing year,—retirement which purchased bodily health and peace of mind, that had not been his in court and palace. The situation of the hotel is picturesque, the balconies overhanging the beach, and the seaward outlook is enchanting. All the appointments—not excepting landlady and housekeeper—were admirable—and the terms less exorbitant than Felina’s lowest charges. It was while guests here, and in obedience to information rendered by the hospitable proprietor, that we made our memorable and only raid upon an orange-orchard. Italian oranges, let me say, en passant, are, in their perfection and at the most favorable season, inferior in richness and sweetness to our Havana and Florida fruit. The sourest I ever tasted were bought in Rome, and warranted “dolce.” Single oranges, and oranges in twos and threes, we had eaten from the trees in the garden of the Tramontana Hotel. Oranges by the quantity—as we had vowed to behold and pluck them—were to be had somewhere for the picking. In our character as independent Sorosis larks, we pined for these and liberty—to gather at our will. I have forgotten the name lettered upon the gate-posts at which our cocchiÈre set us down. “Villa” Something or Somebody. We saw no buildings whatsoever, going no further into the estate than the orchard of orange and lemon-trees in luxuriant fruitage, and smaller, sturdier trees, that had borne, earlier in the season, the aromatic dwarf-orange, or mandarino.

“Tutti finiti!” said the gardener when we asked for these.

We consoled ourselves by filling our pockets with fruit when we had eaten all we could. “Could” signifies more than the uninitiated can believe to a group of American girls knee-deep in soft, lush grasses, orange-flower scent distilling into the warm air from a thousand tiny retorts, globes of red-gold hanging thick between them and the sky, and such exuberance of fun as only glad-hearted American girls can know, ruling the hour. We had made, in the hearing of our cocchiÈre, a bargain with the proprietor of the Hesperides. We were to eat all we wanted, and carry away all we could without baskets, and pay him a franc and a half at the gate on our return. I dare not say how many we plucked, sucked dry and threw away empty, or how many more we carried off in the pockets of over-skirts, lower skirts and jackets. We were in the orchard for an hour, wading through the cool grass, making critical selections from the loaded boughs and leisurely regalement upon our spoils, and talking even more nonsense than we had done during the nocturnal revel over cold, white mutton and weak tea at the HÔtel Royale. The gardener followed us wherever we moved, eying us as sourly as if he had lived from childhood upon unripe lemons. At the gate he broke our contract by demanding two francs and a half for the damage done his orchard. With (Italian) tears in his eyes he protested that he had never imagined the possibility of ladies eating so many oranges, or pockets so enormous; that we had consumed the profits of his entire crop in one rapacious hour—and so much more to the like effect that we passed from compassion and repentance to skepticism and indignation, and called up the cocchiÈre as witness and umpire. He scratched his head very hard, and listened very gravely to both sides, before rendering a verdict. Then he hinted gently that, being novices in the business of orchard-raids, we had possibly overacted our parts; that our appetites orange-ward had passed the bounds of the Sorrento imagination, and that American pockets were a trifle larger than those of his country-people. Naturally, since Americans had so much more to put into them. But honor was honor, and a bargain a bargain. What if we were to pay the unconscionable, injured husbandman—whose oranges were the whole living of himself and family—two francs to compensate for his losses and out of sheer charity.

We were willing, the husbandman mournfully resigned, and cocchiÈre received buono mano for his amicable adjustment of the difficulty.

We had a real adventure upon the return trip to Naples. Our party filled a railway carriage with the exception of two seats, one of which was taken by an elderly German, the other by an Italian officer, whose bright eyes and bronzed complexion were brighter and darker for his snowy hair. Ernesto had engaged to meet us at the station at nine o’clock P.M. We had no apprehension on the score of the proprieties with so steady and tried a coachman. But we were loaded down with parcels of Sorrento woodwork, and the streets swarmed with daring thieves. At a former visit to Naples, as we were driving through the Chiaja, the fashionable thoroughfare of the city, a man had sprung upon the carriage-step, snatched a gold chain and locket from the neck of a young lady sitting opposite to me, and made off with his booty before we could call out to Caput who sat beside the coachman. The streets were one blaze of lamps, the hour early dusk; a hundred people must have witnessed the robbery, but nobody interfered.

“We shall have trouble with all these, I am afraid!” remarked I, looking at the bulky bundles.

“You vill, inteet!” struck in the German, respectfully. “I dit haf to bay effer so mooch duty on some photograph I did dake from Bompeii to Naple dis last veek.”

“Duty! in going from one Italian city to another!”

“Duty! and a fery heafy impost it is! Brigand dey are—de Gofferment and all!”

We had spent so much of our substance—rating available funds as such—in the ruinously-fascinating shops of Sorrento that the prospect of duties that might double the sum was no bagatelle. The story sounded incredible. We appealed to the officer, making frank disclosure of our purchases and ignorance of custom-house regulations. He was a handsome man, with a fatherliness of manner in hearkening to our story that won our confidence. It was true, he stated, that imposts were levied by one Italian city and province upon the products of another. Equally true that it was a relic of less enlightened days when union of the different states under one government was a dream, even of wise patriots. He advised us to conceal as many of our parcels under our cloaks as we could, to avoid notice and a scene at the gate of the station. Should we be stopped, he would represent the case in its proper aspect, and do what he could to help us.

“Although”—with a smile—“custom-house officials do not relish interference from any quarter.”

He spoke French fluently, but the conversation that succeeded was in his own tongue. He was a gentleman, intelligent and social, with the gentle, winning courtesy of speech and demeanor that characterizes the well-bred Italian, infinitely more pleasing than the polished hollowness of the Frenchman of equal rank. As we were running into the station he asked permission to carry a large portfolio one of us had bought. His short, military cloak, clasped at the throat, and falling over one arm, hid it entirely.

“And yours?” he turned to Miss M——, whose possessions were most conspicuous of all.

“Tell him,” she said to Prima, in her pleasant, even tones, “that I will hide nothing. I have been all over the Continent with all sorts of things known as contraband in my satchel and trunks, and have never paid a cent of duty. Nobody troubles me. They see that I am an American who speaks no language but her own, therefore is perfectly honest. They would let me pass if I were made of Sorrento wood, carved and inlaid in the most expensive style. You will see! I bear a charmed life.”

I went through the gate first. There was room but for one at a time.

“Le panier,” an officer touched my little basket of oranges.

I opened it.

“You can pass.”

Miss M—— was next. Serene as a May morning in her native Virginia, bending her head slightly and courteously to the myrmidons of the law, as she walked between them, loaded up to the chin with flat, round and irregular packages concerning whose contents there was not a possibility of mistake—she was the impersonation of a conscience void of offence to this or any other government. The officials were alive in a second.

“Sorrento!” ejaculated one, and in French, requested her to step back into the custom-house office.

“I don’t speak French,” said the delinquent, smiling calmly, and passed right on.

Six of them buzzed after, and around her, like so many bees, letting the rest of the party walk unchallenged through the gate.

“I don’t speak Italian!” she observed, with a pitying smile, at their grimacing and posturing. “Not a word! I am sorry I cannot understand you. I am an American!”

Still walking forward, her parcels clasped in her arms.

We laughed. We could not help it. But it was unwise, for the men grew angry as well as vociferous, dancing around their prisoner in a transport of enraged perplexity that put a new face upon the affair. Prima went to the rescue of her undismayed friend. She assured the officers that the lady was really ignorant of their language, and willing to do what was just and right. Calming down, they yet declared that she, and, indeed, all of us, must go into the office, give an account of ourselves, and pay duty upon such contraband articles as we had with us. It might be a form, but it was the law. Where was our gray-haired officer all this while? We had not seen him since he assisted us to alight from the carriage, the precious portfolio held cleverly under his left arm. Now, casting anxious eyes upon the crowd gathering about our devoted band, we looked vainly for the silvery head and military cap, for the gleam of the gold lace upon his one uncovered shoulder. It was plain that he had deserted us at the first note of alarm.

“And my beautiful portfolio!” gasped the late owner thereof.

We were at the gate, Miss M—— the only composed one of the humbled “larks,” the curious throng pressing nearer and closer, when down into their ranks charged a flying figure, careless that the streaming cloak revealed the Sorrento folio—waving a paper in his hand. The officers raised their caps; fell away from us and ordered off the gaping bystanders.

“I am most sorry,” said our deliverer, breathless with haste. “But when I saw the men stop you, I went into the Custom-House to obtain a pass in due form from the chief.”

Prima has it to this day. It certified that the contents of our parcels were “articles de luxe” for our personal use, and ordered that we should be suffered to proceed upon our way unmolested.

“It was the shortest way, and the safest,” pursued our self-constituted escort, walking with us to the carriage. “But allow me to express my sorrow that you were subjected to even a momentary annoyance.”

He handed us into our carriage; regretted that his return that night to Castellamare would prevent him from being of further service to us during our stay in Naples, smiled and disclaimed when we thanked him warmly for his kindness, and uncovered his dear old head as we drove away.

Miss M—— sank back with a long sobbing breath, the first indication of agitation she had displayed since the arrest at the gate:

“I shall love the sight of the Italian uniform as long as I live!” she averred, with heartfelt emphasis.

“So said”—and so do—“all of us!”