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The Spike or Victoria College Review, June 1905

Neapolitan Notes

page 20

Neapolitan Notes.

aples impresses itself strongly on the mind of the man that visits it for the first time, and the impression that it makes is quite curious in its combination of pleasure and disgust. As one enters the Bay from the south, passing between beautiful Capri and the Campanella with its sides fenced for vineyards, the beauty of the scene gives one pleasure that is quite unmixed. And the view of Vesuvius and the lower hills, of the sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum, of the suburbs of Naples and of Naples itself seems only to make that pleasure greater. The first 'jar' comes gently as a boat draws alongside with a party of alleged musicians on board. They play the mandolin and the violincello not badly and they sing. This last is quite unpardonable for their voices are strident and unpleasant. Of course coins are thrown to them, which coins one of the women catches deftly in an open parasol. It is fair to say that later experience leads me to the conclusion that the Italian voice is generally pleasant.

One goes ashore in a tender and is dropped among a horde of Customs officials and of porters and hangers on. Here tips judiciously expended will effect much, for even if you have nothing dutiable you are liable to infinite delay and annoyance. Indeed you have entered the land of corruption, where men must be paid not only for doing things legal and illegal, but even for standing aside and letting you go your way in peace—though whether all the mints of Europe have ever coined money enough to secure one traveller an unmolested passage through an Italian town is at least doubtful. Indeed the troubles begun in the Custom house—where, incidentally, four men fight for your portmanteau and the strongest settles the matter by kicking the rest in the stomach—follow you all through Italy. If you have a currozella you are lucky if you don't find one vampire dash past you to open the door, for which, of course, he expects to be paid, and another seize your umbrella and pass it to you, for which, equally of course, he expects to be paid. But I must rigidly determine to quit this grievance for the present, or these notes will be nothing but a disquisition on the subject of tips. Only when you enter a railway station in Italy, — but no, I'll keep the vow I swore.

In Naples, as in other Italian towns, one is struck by the fact that the middle class women frequently, and the women of the lower classes nearly always, go about without hats. Possibly page 21 it is from that cause that they have such beautiful heads of hair. Probably any young woman who, in one of our towns should dare to go bareheaded, would outstrip all competitors in the matrimonial race—her husband would have so much more money to spend on tobacco. These beautiful heads of hair in Naples appear to require the attention that only a huntress can give, for on a fine Sunday afternoon one sees this attention being given in the doorways or on the side-walk, when there is a side-walk.

The donkey is much in evidence as a beast of burden in Naples, and his burden is often a heavy one indeed. Moreover he is often very small. It seems as if the load he can carry is in inverse proportion to his size. It is odd to see a donkey and an ox yoked together to the same cart. Every possible partnership of horse, mule, donkey and ox is to be seen. The horses are small but usually strong. The horses one sees in private equipages are among the finest in the world.

What proportion of the population of Naples consists of priests, what of soldiers and what of uniformed civilians, is probably known to some one.

The lightheartedness of the Neapolitan is proverbial, and well it may be so. We see nothing like it. One sees calculating faces (and is impressed with the belief that the calculating concerns the over-reaching of strangers) everywhere, but anxious faces are rare. In the evening and at other times of relaxation singing and laughter are everywhere. One could learn to love these people, but it would be much easier to learn to love them if they were clean.

The filthiness of many of the beggars constitutes their chief merit. Others have the great merit of being cripples, and these usually achieve the merit of dirtiness as well. Their habits would draw upon them the ire of Dr. Mason from a distance of a hundred miles. I have seen dirty Maori kaingas, but I have seen no kainga where a man sees and smells the filthiness that disgraces several of the narrow streets through which tourists from all over the world drive between Naples and Pompeii.

Of all things in the neighbourhood of Naples nothing is so well worth seeing or so impressive as Pompeii. However much one has read and thought about the place the reality comes home to one with a freshness and force that are marvellous. And the marvel is as great on the second visit as on the first. Probably it would not be less on the twentieth. If one visited Naples a hundred times he would probably visit Pompeii as often. The way to enjoy a visit is to chase the guide off and to give some one of the troublesome officials a "tip" to keep himself and the rest away, and then just let the spirit of the page 22 place work into one. In Rome the same thing applies at the Coliseum and the Roman Forum and at most places that have a long and impressive history.

The museum at Naples, where many of the treasures from Pompeii are placed, is a vast place and its interest is no less vast. A man could spend weeks there even if he had none of the archæologist's instincts. An archæologist could spend his life there.

The Aquarium of the Biological station is a very fine one in all respects—splendidly appointed and magnificently managed. The director, Dr Dörn, is quite used to entertaining the monarchs and other great ones of Europe and he succeeds in gaining their interest. He has promised to try, if ever he gets the chance, to interest Mr Seddon in the cause of an observing station at Wellington.

The mention of the Aquarium reminds me that my impression in regard to the Mediterranean is that it is not so blue as it's painted. It is blue for an Englishman, blue, too, for a New Zeallander, though not noticeably bluer than some of his own seas.

I went to Europe mainly to see laboratories and I saw them—many of them. It was a fine thing to see them and a finer thing to see the men that conduct them. I'm not going to give a description of any of the places here, but shall note two general features. The first is that at nearly all they spend money freely and can therefore do with ease what we in Wellington can, at best, hope that our successors may achieve. The second is that the men are generally ready to complain that there is too little money available for what ought to be done. This at first seems strange to us who have so little, but it is really a natural and healthy feature, for what progress should we make if we were satisfied? I should like to note a third general feature—at most of the great laboratories they recall with pleasure the small beginnings and look back with pride upon the hardships of the earlier days. Now this fills me with dismay, for if these men are proud, one of having started in a two-roomed cottage, another of having begun in the unsuitable surroundings of a noisy street, and so on, into what an insufferable condition of pride may we not fall, we who for three years have sought refuge in a single small room used throughout the day as a kinder-garten school; a room into which, when we occupy it at night, float the noises made by the sons of Belial that congregate outside, and a room in which lectures have many a time been broken in upon by the noise of the noisiest traction engine that ever was built! When we reach Salamianca Road the comparative ease and glory of our surroundings will necessitate the further provision of a cellar in which we may sit occasionally in sackcloth and ashes lest we become too conceited to be borne.