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The next morning we were at anchor in the harbor of Mes-
sina where we staid a half day visiting the city, and enjoy-
ing a breakfast of fresh sardines. The scenery all around
was pretty and was preparing us for the beauties of the Bay
of Naples where we arrived the next morning before sunrize.
Between Malta and Naples we passed at night the volcano
of Stromboli which we saw burning.
It is useless to expatiate on the beauties which revealed them-
selves as we stood on the deck of the steamer at Naples while
the sun was preparing to rize. It is an oft told tale, and need
not be repeated. The rotten condition of the government under
the last of the Bourbons who reigned, Ferdinand II, commonly
known as King Bomba, was apparent immediately on our land-
ing at the custom house, when the soldiers who were detailed
for the examination of baggage, instead of proceeding with
their work, neglected it and were openly and unblushingly
urgent for a small fee, called in their language “bono mano”
or drink money. It was a disgraceful proceeding, and when
it was over we were taken in an omnibus to the Hotel Vitto-
ria, at the head of the street known as the Villa Reale. Our
party then consisted of five. Dickenson, Nasmyth, a Colonel
of a Bengal regiment, a man from Australia whom we thought
might have been the son of an ex-convict, as he was born there,
and myself. We were just enough to fill an open carriage
and have one riding with the coachman, and we did Naples together
accordingly.
A week spent there in the way that we did, riding about in
every direction, over roads which were mostly in good condition,
was very delightful. One days excursion took us through the tunnel
called the grotto of Posilippo, and among the ruins or traces of an-
cient cities, like Pozzuoli, or of the sea side villas of the ancient
Romans, were they had small lakes for containing and fattening
their favorite fishes, with other contrivances and arrangements for
lives of ease and sensuality, and as far as Baiae where we stopped
at an inn and ordered a dish of cooked oysters. We also saw that
day the celebrated ruin of a temple standing in the water on the edge
of the road, which shows by marks of borings by marine insects on
its columns certain subsidences and subsequent elevations which
were produced by earthquakes.
Our next day was to Pompei, but, it being Sunday, we visited
several churches, especially one of the largest where high mass was
being celebrated, in the morning. All the details were well carried
out, with splendid music, and the effect was grand. It was in that
church, in a side chapel, that the annual exhibition of the liqui-
faction of the blood of St Januarius was performed. In a part
of the city where the streets were very narrow and the houses very
high on both sides was a little building, possibly a chapel, where
we went to see that remarkable piece of statuary of a strong man
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