Arrival at Naples - Museum - English Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals at Naples - Slaughter-houses in England - Art objects from Pompeii sometimes echoes of modern Japan - Baiee - Coleridge and Harrison on Gibbon - South of Italy less affected by barbaric invasions than other parts - Aquarium - Goats - Dr. Munthe on the housing of the poor - Mrs. Jameson's picnic - Pompeii: smallness of the houses- Mr. Rolfe on Pompeiian pins and matches - Cenotaphs and war memorials - Pompeiian gardens as models for London - Sorrento and Amain - Garibaldi on cremation - 'Aurora Leigh.'

About the middle of April my son and I went on to Naples, and the rest of the party went home. We did shopping and sight-seeing all the morning of the day we left Florence, saw our friends off in the afternoon, came back and packed, left by rail at six o'clock in the evening, changed into a sleeping-car at Rome at midnight, and reached Naples at seven the next morning. We took a carriage and drove three miles to an hotel high on the hill to the north-west of the town, where we had great difficulty in getting a front room. The back rooms were close against the rocky sides of the hill, the consolation being that the rock was magnificently clothed by a very fine old wistaria in full flower. The view from the front rooms in the early morning light was certainly most glorious. Our first day was almost our only fine one. Though well on in April, the weather was very cold, and after the first day the view was so veiled that we were only able to see Vesuvius twice.One of these times, as the clouds rolled by, it was snow-capped and lighted from foot to summit by the setting sun - bright crimson-red at the top, graduating down to hazy purple, all the base bathed in mist, the town standing out, yellow and red, in front of it, and the smoke of the mountain rising up pale grey against a coal-black storm-cloud. This was the one really beautiful colour effect that I saw during my eight days at Naples. The blue bay and purple Ischia never existed for us. When we saw the island at all its volcanic peaks were only silhouetted in a deeper tone against the grey sky. On the whole I was disappointed with Naples; but this is frequently the case on first visiting for a short time a place that one has heard of all one's life and thought one knew from pictures and descriptions. I was disappointed in the one-sidedness of its bay, which curves boldly to the east, but is cut off, to the exclusion of all coast view, by the rocky feet of the high hills to the west. These hide the sunsets, and prevent any distant effect on that side of the town. In all other directions the suburbs are huge, and getting out of modern Naples is almost like getting out of London.

To return to our first day. In spite of our night journey, we got a carriage and made at once for that marvellous museum which I had longed all my life to see. It is rich with every kind of beautiful object, in which the traveller suddenly finds himself face to face with the lost life of ancient Greece. The Greek invasion of Southern Italy seems to have been some time later than the building of Passtum, of which the date has been fixed with comparative certainty at about 650 B.C. I had never been told of one small instance of conservatism which I noticed in Naples. It is probably to be found all over Southern Italy; anyhow, the same thing is to be seen at Brindisi, so that it is known to many people who travel for business and not for pleasure, and who may never have visited any other Italian town but that one. The horses are quite differently harnessed from anywhere else. They have no bit in their mouths, and are guided by a tight bandage - with, I believe, nails in it - over their noses. This and many other cruelties to animals are very apparent in Southern Italy; and I was amused to see, by the prominent advertising of the English Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, that, with the usual characteristic of an English settlement in a foreign town, they were keenly alive to the faults of the people who surround them, while we at home allow the continuance of the most frightful abuses, content to be kind to our dogs and horses. I cannot understand how this Society rests on its oars while the laws at home respecting slaughter-houses remain inadequate, and even these are evaded, not only in our huge London, but in every village and town in the land. The animals in these slaughter-houses are allowed to get into a state of frenzied terror before being killed, as they are not protected against the appalling sights, smells, and sounds which result from the slaughtering of their companions. This state of fear produced in them before being killed has a most injurious effect on the quality of the meat. The curious thing is that the only agitation against these abuses comes from the despised vegetarian, for sentimental reasons, his own health being unaffected by them, whereas to the meat-eater there are materially harmful results in the fact that animals are slain while in a state of absolute panic. There is, moreover, no proper inspection - at any rate, in country districts - to ensure against animals being sold for meat in spite of their being actually diseased. Very little improvement can be expected while the butcher has to bear the whole loss of a diseased carcase. I heard the other day, first-hand from one of my friends, a tale which gives one cause to ponder.

In a consumptive sanatorium the patients who were forced by the doctor to eat kidney pudding were all taken more or less ill, as was also the doctor. The cook was questioned about the kidneys. She promptly answered, as if it was nothing very unusual, that several of them had stones in them, ' But I cut 'em out before cooking them '! My friend, having a natural dislike to ' innards,' had absolutely refused to eat the pudding, and her immunity from sickness led to the inquiry.

Much as I had looked forward to the Naples Museum, it far surpassed all my expectations. It was Garibaldi, when dictator in 1860, who proclaimed the museum and the territory devoted to the excavations to be the property of the nation. Our time in Naples was so short that, as we had just come from Florence, we resolved to avoid the picture gallery altogether, with its wealth of mediaeval paintings, and give our whole time to the Greek and Roman art treasures to be found in the other parts of the museum. Good statues one has seen elsewhere, but the bronze objects used in daily life in Pompeii and Hercu-laneum, such as lamps, braziers, pots, vases, jugs, beds, &c, were an absolute revelation to me. One's astonishment is heightened when one realises that Pompeii was merely a seaside summer resort, about the size of, let us say, Worthing. The bronze braziers, beautiful as they are, must have afforded little heat to the inhabitants in the cold spring months, as most of them are so tall - some nearly six feet high. I suppose it is not known what was burnt in these braziers; they may have had some artificial fuel, as is used in Japan to this day. The lamps are of endless variety of design, sometimes grotesque, sometimes quite plain, but all beautiful in proportion and balance. Placed on low tripod stands, they reminded me in form and general appearance of some of the best Japanese stands and vases for flowers.