Naples Under the Old Régime: A Chapter of Autobiography

THERE are few persons who have large sympathy with their race, and have pored over what we call its history, but must have felt how insufficient the chronicle of man’s early struggles toward liberty and civilization usually is; how much that is interesting and useful to human progress it leaves hidden in mystery, and how many pregnant secrets of the past could be disclosed were it only possible for us to reverse the wheels of Time’s chariot, and to revert to the dim days that are gone. Who has not felt a longing to inspect more than the inanimate relics of by-gone ages : remains of prehistoric civilization scattered over the Central and Southern portions of our hemisphere, or the classic wonders of Grecian art on the Pæstum waste, or, outranking all, the architectural miracles of the Nile valley — Karnac and Luxor and the Pyramids, and all the rest? Who but would fain make acquaintance also with the living laborers that created these beautiful and stupendous, but alas! mute witnesses of taste and skill ? We desire not only to see the colossal structures of ancient Egypt, but to know what manner of men the myriad workers were, how they were managed and treated and fed, and by what phase of despotic sway they were herded and compelled to squander labor, that might have erected vast cities, on Titanic monuments with scarcely a practical use. We cannot help the wish that it were possible, not only to gaze on the ruins of the Parthenon and the Acropolis, but to listen to Plato in the Academy, or walk with Aristotle in the Lyceum; or, better still, to sit with Socrates throughout his last day.

So, too, of a later age. One longs to do more than inspect the ecclesiastic structures of the Middle Ages, magnificent and awe-inducing as they are; or, on our side of the Atlantic, more than make a modern pilgrimage to the spot where sturdy freedom-searchers from beyond the sea first gazed on the bleak ami wintry homes they came so far to seek. IIow much greater would be the privilege to look in upon the living monk Luther, nailing his theses to the door of the Wittenberg Sehlosskirche, or on the Pilgrims themselves, landing on Plymouth rock!

But something analogous to this one has power to do; for on the earth, as we find it, there are a hundred grades of civilization, in aspects physical, moral, religious, political. Something analogous to this I was myself able to attain, when, in the summer of 1853, I was appointed to represent my adopted country near the King of the Two Sicilies.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by H. O. HOUGHTON & Co., in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

One of the first objects that met my eye, in straying through the streets of Naples, was a large placard, with the proclamation by the then reigning King, Ferdinand II., of Spanish Bourbon race. It contained a law, in the form of a decree, which, on consultation with one of his ministers (as the preamble declared) that monarch thus promulgated to his people for their government; and it was headed in conspicuous capitals: “ IL NOSTRO RÈ ASSOLUTO.” No decently eoncealing veil deemed necessary, the law was honestly labeled as the dictum of “ OUR DESPOTIC KING.” It carried me back to the times, among our ancestors, when Tudor and Stuart dynasties took pride in proclaiming that they ruled by right divine; and when, as Jefferson has it, “ the many were born with saddles on their backs, and the favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately by the grace of God.”

Nor did a nearer acquaintance with the political state of the country change my first idea. I remember missing for several evenings, from the balls of the nobility, a bright young marquis whom I knew well. “ What has become of him ? ” I asked one of his friends.

“Ah, you have not heard?” — and the speaker, looking round and seeing no one within ear-shot, added, under his breath: “He was carried off from his father’s palazzo¹ at midnight, one day last month.”

“ For what offense ? ”

“ Offense? ” with a smile; “we guess such things in our country; we are never told them. The marquis always was a free-spoken young fellow, and I thought he’d get into trouble some day.”

“ Will not his relatives interfere and ask the cause of his detention ? ”

“ Certainly not. The only reply would be one or two additional arrests.”

Several months passed; then the marquis suddenly appeared at an evening party. By this time I had learned eautton, and did not address him till I saw no one was near. After expressing pleasure at meeting him again, I asked: “ Where have you been ? ”

“I don’t know”—smiling sadly: “ somewhere about a hundred miles in the interior, it must have been.” Then interpreting my look of curiosity, he added : “ One night our portiere came to my bedroom with two officers of police. ‘ On the part of the King ’ was all they said, except to bid me dress speedily and to tell me that I might take with me a small valise. Wc found a close carriage at the door; traveled all next day, the blinds down, except when we were passing through uninhabited parts of the country ; and, in the course of tlie next night, came to an old fortress, where I was consigned to the jailer.”

“ You don’t know what fortress? ”

“ I have not the remotest idea.”

“ Were you cruelly treated ? ”

“ Not what they call cruelly. I was not tortured, nor put in irons ; only told that, if I was detected in the slightest action looking to an escape, I should be chained by the neck to the wall of my cell. I saw not a human face there except, once a day, my keeper’s, when he brought the coarse prison-fare.”

“ Of what crime did they accuse you ? You were surely confronted with witnesses ? ”

“ Ah, that is an American supposition. I was charged with no crime, confronted with no witness. I guessed what was the matter, and was confirmed in my guess when they dismissed me.”

“ How was your release obtained ? ”

“ By the King’s will. He probably thought that would do for the first lesson. Two police officers woke me one night, as before. ‘ The King’s government is merciful as well as just,’ said one of them. ‘ Bear that in mind, young sir, and bridle your tongue, now that you are about to be let off. Mercy may not be granted twice. Up and dress ! ’ I was set at liberty at midnight, at my father’s door, and here I am; free, if I can only keep bitter thoughts to myself in the future.”

I had read of Richelieu’s lettres decachet; now I felt, almost as if the experience had been my own, what they meant. I seemed to have gone back a century or two, and to be living in the past.

Naples, in those days, might have read a lesson to those who imagine that national morals can be maintained irrespective of political institutions and governmental action. I made the acquaintance of Don Liborio Romano, an eminent Neapolitan lawyer, who had been banished for years from the kingdom because of his political heresies, and had received a significant hint to be prudent when at last he was permitted to return. But with me he was off his guard; the Liberals of the European Continent are wont to speak freely to the English, and especially to Americans. I met, in Paris in 1859, a French official, named Matter, who, m entrusting to me certain confidential matters, prefaced his disclosure with a strangely candid remark. “ You are Anglo-Saxon,” he said, “and that is a trustworthy race; I would not confide these facts to one of my countrymen.” I wished, as he said it, that we all better deserved such trust than we do. Don Liborio was equally frank.

“ Signor Ministro,” he said to me, “we live here under one of the worst governments in the world. There is no security, for a single day, to person or property. As regards those of any rank or influence among us, the estimable, the intelligent, the industrious, are considered dangerous characters, and are placed under a system of strictest espionage, dogged even to the privacy of their houses, tracked by spies (sometimes their own companions, often their servants), day and night : while the worthless and indolent, the spendthrift, the debauchee, are regarded as safe and inoffensive persons, whom it would not pay to watch.”

“ So bad as that ? ”

It is the settled rule of policy — a terrible despotism that we have never been able to shake off.”

“ Yet you had the power, for a time, in 1848.”

“ Do you know why we did not succeed in maintaining it? We had no sufficient bond of union. We had no confidence in one another. I never feel assured, even now, that my nearest friend may not betray me to death. The iron, as one of your English writers expresses it, has entered into our souls. It is terrible to say, but we have no TRUTH among us.”

“ Terrible indeed ! ”

“ And so, when we did get the upper hand, we had not faith enough in each other to retain it.”

Here is a lifting of the veil on one of the great mysteries of the past. One perceives the steps of the process whereby a mere handful of men, once installed as despots, might perpetuate throughout century after century their evil rule over millions, nay tens of millions, who, any day, had the power, a hundred times told, to sweep the oppressors who held them in thrall from the face of the earth. Premiums on vice were habitually offered by the tyrants to the millions. The fear of danger, greed, the urgent needs of the hour perhaps, secured their acceptance. Vice throve and spread. Hence weakness in the individual man; for vice has no generous resolve or abiding strength. And hence, yet more, weakness in the masses as a unit; for vice cannot trust its neighbor, and so cannot combine for the general good.

Are we — republicans, self-rulers, as we boast ourselves — substantially free from the demoralizing influences that held the Neapolitans bound, hand and heart, throughout two terrible centuries of Austrian vice-regal rule, and more than another century of Bourbon despotism ? We deceive ourselves if we think so. Public morality is at a lower ebb than it was quarter of a century ago; our legislative bodies are less pure; our public service generally more stained with venality. Office, among us now, is more frequently the reward of questionable partisan service than of honesty and capacity. Nay, the very source whence our political system springs — the election precinct itself — has become subject to invasions of corruption that have waxed, year by year, more frequent and more shameless. But public immorality reacts on private morals. The vice-diseases which originate in politics, if they assume a malignant type, cannot, by any sanitary cordon, be confined to politics; they are sure to infect, first, our business marts, then the home-circle itself. It behooves us well to consider whether, if throughout another quarter century we tolerate the same downward tendency, there will be cohesive honesty enough left to hold our government together.

Our nation has no prescriptive exemption from decadence. Is our boast well founded, that it will always remain “ the land of the free and the home of the brave ” ? Not if we offer premiums on vice; not if we promote the unworthy; not if we applaud or countenance the successful swindlers in public or commercial life. Liberty itself is in peril so long as men grant office except to merit, or friendship or admiration except to probity and worth.

Let us bear in mind that the Neapolitans, who retained till centuries after the Christian era the municipal rights and the liberal constitution bequeathed to them by their Grecian ancestors — and of which distinct traces linger in their political system to this day² — though they have recently attained comparative liberty, had not honest vigor enough “ themselves to strike the blow.” It needed a Garibaldi to rouse and lead them.

I had heard much of the dissolute lives of the Neapolitans; yet, in the society I frequented, there did not come to my knowledge as many surface-proofs of this as I expected. What I did verify, beyond doubt or apology, was the utter untruthfulness of this people, from their King down to their beggars. A notable example occurs to me.

I met, at an evening party, a young married lady of good family, recently from a southern province of the kingdom. Of rare beauty she was, especially rare for her country, which abounds in plain women. (I think I have seen more handsome girls in New York, or Boston, in five weeks, than I saw in Italy throughout five years.) And she had the inimitably graceful and winning manners that seem inborn in that Southern clime. I happened to join a small circle of her friends, to whom she was relating, in animated terms, her adventures of the day before while shopping.

“I had such a good time,” she said. “ I wanted a handsome moire-antique, and I knew just where to look for it ” — mentioning a noted silk-mercer in the Toledo. “ He had a perfect beauty, the richest quality I ever saw, and Such a lovely purple ! Just one dress pattern left, too. Fifty-eight ducats I finally brought him down to, and not a grano lower would he go. It was cheap enough, and I knew I was bound to have it.”

“So you bought it? ” asked a lady present.

“ Pian piano, my dear; there is luck in leisure. I told him, carelessly, that, if I could not find as good an article elsewhere at a lower rate, I might perhaps return and take his. Then I went off in the direction of Pietro —’s store; and I saw he noticed that. I knew they were sworn rivals and always underselling each other.”

“ Had Pietro anything as good? ”

“ Ah, simple one ! I knew his stock of silks by heart; so I merely sauntered about for half an hour, and returned to the other. ‘ Your friend Pietro,’ I said to him, ‘ has a piece the very same as this. I told him of yours, and finally he said that rather than I should go away, I might have a dress from his for fiftyfour ducats.’ ”

“ Pardon ! The Signora must have mistaken,” he replied. “The man has not a piece of moire-antique of this quality in his whole stock.”

“ He had not yesterday,” I answered; “ but the piece I saw was from a box which he had just opened.” Then I looked him in the face so innocently and with such sweet unconcern (though my heart was beating all the while) that I saw he hesitated. So I added : “ On my honor, it was just as good as this; but do as you please. I told you I’d come back and buy from you, if I could not do better, and I like to keep my word. I won’t ask you to take less than Pietro offered; but why should I pay fifty-eight ducats for what I can have for fifty-four by walking a few hundred yards ? ”

“ And you have it, you sly gattina ? ”³one of the attentive circle here put in.

“ In my trunk at home, along with the four ducats which I saved by taking a half hour’s stroll. The man was just fool enough to believe me.”

She had evidently not the slightest sense of shame or wrong-doing; nor had her audience for her. Every one seemed delighted, and the lady was heartily congratulated on her quick-wittedness and good fortune. I looked on that faultless Madonna face and its charming smile, feeling that I could have wedded Petruchio’s Kate almost as lief as one so fair and false.

As might be expected, the government officials were no exception to the rule ; and their barefaced mode of embodying in some of their dispatches — in language that was the pink of courtesy, too —statements transparently untrue was, to one who did not wish to be rude, embarrassing enough. There occurs to me, out of my first year’s experience in Naples, an incident in point.

A native Sicilian who had been twelve years in the United States, having become a naturalized citizen and saved money, had taken passage in a merchant vessel from Boston to Messina, intending to pay a short visit to his aged parents, who lived near that city, and to return by the same vessel. He was refused permission to land; and the consul there, unable to manage the case, sent it to me.

I had noticed, in glancing over the official correspondence of my predecessor, Mr. Joy Morris, that he had been repeatedly annoyed by similar refusals ; and though in each case the government had finally given way, it was expressly stated to be as a favor, granted without conceding the favorite principle, “ Once a subject, always a subject,” so often asserted by European Powers ; and I resolved to have that moot point settled on a permanent basis.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, after delaying action for weeks on various false pretenses, finally admitted the man — “ out of a wish to gratify the representative of so great a nation ” — but not until the vessel which brought him had sailed on her return voyage. Thereupon I sent in a claim for damages, which I put at ten dollars for each day’s detention.

Then ensued a correspondence running through five or six months. I hope the Minister has since repented of the dozens of lies he therein told me, in honeyed words, entirely evading the main question. At first I was content carefully to refute each plea; afterwards, losing patience, I wrote him “ that, were it not for the vast amount of business which I knew must be constantly pressing on him, and which had doubtless prevented his Excellency from personally giving to this case the needed attention, I felt assured, in view of his Excellency’s well-known discernment and intimate knowledge of international law, that he must not only have perceived that the statements made could not but be known to me as devoid of foundation, but also that they could not possibly have been regarded by himself in any other light.” To this came an answer as courteous as it was unsatisfactory.

I had made up my mind to ask a personal audience of the King, if necessary; and, if nothing came of that, to demand my passports and go off to Rome, which I felt sure would bring the government to terms. First, however, I sent word to Commodore Stringham, then at Spezia in command of our Mediterranean squadron, that, if he could conveniently send me a couple of vessels to Naples for a few weeks, it might facilitate a negotiation I had on hand Then I tried one more letter to the Minister, in which I “ hoped I had given proof of my very great desire to preserve intact the amicable relations which had always so happily subsisted,” etc., etc.; but added that if an express treaty stipulation, which granted to all American citizens right of entry and travel in the dominions of his Majesty, were to be thus habitually violated, the treaty itself became but a bit of waste paper: a state of things which, with every disposition to forbearance on our part, could not but imperil the good understanding between the two countries. A day or two after my letter was sent, the vessels arrived, causing much speculation in the Neapolitan cafés; but for two weeks I had nothing from the Minister. Then came a proof that to every general rule touching shortcomings in national character there are honorable exceptions.

One morning my servant brought me up a card, on which I read: “ M. de Rosa, Intendente.⁴di Messina.” Ah, thought I, this looks like business; and I awaited my visitor, expecting a sharp encounter of wits. An elderly gentleman of pleasant mien advanced with the matchless grace and cordiality of his country, and extended his hand. “ This is not,” he said smilingly, “ the Intendente of Messina asking an audience of the American Minister; it is Monsieur de Rosa come to visit Monsieur Owen.”

“Monsieur Owen,” I replied, “is much better pleased to welcome Monsieur de Rosa than the Minister would have been to receive the Signor Intendente. Pray be seated.”

Then, in a ten minutes' chat, side by side on the sofa, we did more in the way of adjusting this difficulty than a six months’ correspondence had effected. The Governor went directly and candidly to the point at issue. “ Let me say at once,” he began, “that, in this matter, from first to last, you have been in the right and we in the wrong. Your government has an undoubted right to decide who are citizens of your country; and it is not for us to gainsay its decision. But does it not seem to you that ten dollars a day is quite too large an amount for a detention involving nothing except a mere loss of time ? ”

“ Your frankness,” I answered, “ merits frankness in return. Our government holds more to an explicit acknowledgment of a principle, the refusal to accept which has hitherto been a source of annoyance and hard feeling, than to any special rate of damages.” We finally agreed on five or six dollars a day, I forget which; and, though I know it is the fashion, in such cases, to insist on extravagant demands, I think my client (a hairdresser by occupation) was well pleased when I sent him thirtyfive or forty dollars a week, as compensation for the delay to which he had been subjected.

After that I had no trouble whatever on this point; nor much, indeed, on any other: and that I think was due, in a measure, to the fact that, whenever any of our people were in the wrong, I acknowledged it without scruple — a custom to which first-class powers are little wont to adhere.

Sir William Temple, brother of Lord Palmerston, a genial, cultivated, somewhat indolent specimen of the English gentleman of the old school, whom I liked much, and who was British Minister during the first years of my residence in Naples, died there; and his personal property was sold at auction. A captain of one of our vessels bought four of his oil-paintings, of no great value. Now there was a law that no oil-painting purchased in Naples should be exported, except by a foreign minister, without being first offered to the government, which reserved to itself the right to assume the purchase and retain the picture, if it saw fit: the object being to prevent valuable masterpieces from leaving the country. Sir William’s administrator, however, told our captain that the pictures he bought, having been a minister’s property, might be freely exported. So he conveyed them on board his vessel, notwithstanding the impassioned remonstrance of a marine-police officer, who kept guard on the quay, and who spoke Italian only, of which the captain did not understand a word.

A week later, I had a letter from the Foreign Minister, inclosing one from the Minister of the Interior, and that again covering the report of the luckless marine guard ; this last a genuine specimen of Italian eloquence. It went on to state “ that the undersigned, being at his allotted post, and intent, as usual, in maintaining inviolate the sacred interests of his Sicilian Majesty, did,” on such a day and hour, “ perceive returning to their boat, from which they had landed some hours before, six young and large American sailors, as the undersigned believes, very strong and daring, and bearing two ponderous boxes, closely nailed; that the undersigned thereupon arrested their progress, and demanded of an officer in uniform, who followed them, what the said boxes contained, and especially whether there were paintings in oil therein, which, the undersigned took pains to explain to the said officer, could not be exported without a government permit: to which the said officer did reply in some harsh-sounding words, that were utterly unintelligible to the undersigned; that then the undersigned, mindful of his official duty, did vehemently remonstrate, and did endeavor to open the said boxes, so as to discover the mystery therein hidden ; and that thereupon these seven men, stalwart and fierce-looking, did thrust aside the undersigned violently and by force of arms, and did then hasten to convey the boxes into their boat, and, notwithstanding the menaces and threats with which the undersigned pursued them, did bend to their oars with athletic power, reaching their vessel in an incredibly short time, which vessel did, instantly and with the speed of lightning, set her sails and proceed incontinently on her outward voyage, leaving the undersigned helpless to resent the insult which, in his humble person, had thus been inflicted by these stranieri Americani on the Gracious Government of his Majesty.”

Infinitely amused as I was by this dramatic narrative, I was annoyed to learn, from my friend Don Liborio, that the law was against us ; the privilege granted to a foreign minister not being transferable to a purchaser. So I wrote, through the commodore, to the offending captain, a statement of the case and of the law, leaving it to him to act as he saw fit. He behaved admirably ; sent me a letter stating his great regret that he had unintentionally violated any regulations ; and added that he was the more sorry to have done so in this instance, because he and his officers during their stay at Naples had been treated with marked kindness and hospitality by the officials and other persons of distinction. Finally he informed me that he had sent back the pictures by an American vessel which happened to be going to Naples; to be forfeited, or otherwise disposed of, as the government might decide.

Greatly pleased, I wrote the facts to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and delivered my dispatch in person, taking the opportunity to translate to him in Italian the captain’s letter. It produced an effect quite beyond my anticipations.

“ Good God! Signor Ministro,” he said, “ we did not ask this. You have already convinced us that the pictures were of little value, and not such as we should wish to purchase. Write, I pray you, and prevent their being sent back.”

“ It is too late,” I told him ; “ the vessel will be here in a day or two. What shall be done with the boxes ? ”

“ Let them be returned, I beg, to your excellent captain ; and do me the great favor to express to him, on our part, the sense we entertain of his noble conduct in this matter.” Then he crossed his hands on his breast, as the Italians when in earnest are wont to do, and added : “ Ah, Signor Owen, if the other great powers would but act toward us as you are doing, what a different position ours would be ! ”

I knew well what he meant. It was within my knowledge that both England and France, in cases where they were clearly in the wrong, abusing their position as the strong will with the weak, had forced from the Neapolitan Government concessions to which they themselves, had the cases been reversed, would never have assented.

As I took leave, the Minister said to me: “I shall see his Majesty to-morrow morning; and I can assure you that nothing I could communicate will be a greater satisfaction to him than the action of your government -in this matter.”

From that day on, there was a degree of cordiality, in all my intercourse with the foreign department and with the King himself, out of proportion, I thought, to the petty act of justice which seemed to have produced it.

But enough touching despotism and diplomacy. The physical aspect of Naples was in strange contrast to her moral and political decay. It reminded me of Byron’s line, describing another land, —

I reached the city early in October. The day after my arrival, an English physician, an old resident there, who had married a granddaughter of Richard Arkwright, my grandfather’s partner, called on me. ‘‘ My wife and I,” he said, “ drive out every afternoon. Take a seat with us, and give us the privilege of showing you Naples.”

What a week was that which followed ! London is unmatched, in its way ; Paris is a dazzling wonder ; Switzerland is a marvel of majestic beauty ; but — save the rose-hued fairyland of my infancy, Rosebank — that first glorious week in Naples stands alone, unrivaled in memory. What a drive it was we took on the far-famed Strada Nuova, leading in and out along the rock-bound, vineyard-clad shore to Baiæ — city of wonderful relics ! The balmy, delicious climate, in itself a luxury ; the atmosphere, marvelous in transparency, through which distant objects showed preternaturally distinct ; the matchless bay, dotted with fairy islands — Capri, Ischia, Proeida, Nisida — its waters lying in dreamy, glittering quiet, sharing (fancy suggested) the national languor, in that they were stirred not even by heave of tide; then, as noble background, a lofty Apennine range, with Monte Sant’ Angelo, cloudcapped, for a summit; and, more than all and seen from every turn of the road, the purple, lava-encrusted cone of Vesuvius, awaking a thousand memories; the smoke sullenly rising from the summit, a reminder of the power to destroy, that slumbers beneath; all this made up a combination of natural beauty so wondrous and varied that it took captive the senses, as by a spell, and one felt little inclined to treat as hyperbole an encomium of the Neapolitan poet Sannazaro, who, in allusion to this city of Parthenope and its surroundings, spoke of that region of enchantment as

If he who has seen what is fairest in this world may be satisfied to depart in peace, then one can appreciate the force of the adage: “ See Naples and die ! ”

Nor was it inanimate beauty only on which I looked. This country breathes of the past. History is written all over it — over its ruins (once filled with Roman luxury and stained with Roman vice) of palace and temple and bath — the bath rivaling the temple in magnificence; over its tombs and its statues and its buried cities of the past; over picturesque Naples itself, with background of rock and precipitous hill, sprinkled with charming villas and surmounted by castle and monastery.

And it is history of which some of the stone-leaves date back, not only to the heyday of Roman splendor, and even to the times when Xerxes led his many-nationed host, with Libyan chariots and Arabian camels, against astounded Greece, but to a period of which the records were ancient history to Nero and to Xerxes —to an epoch before Homer wrote or Achilles fought. Through a dark grotto partially invaded by water, I was conveyed on the back of a guide to a stone platform, the resting-place, as legend affirms, of the Sibyl who prophesied the destruction of Troy. The long record stretches back full three thousand years. Comparative antiquity dwindles before it, even in the eyes of the peasant who exhibits to strangers the wonders of his country. “ Is it ancient ? ” I said to one of these who had guided me to a massive, venerable-looking pile of brick ; the ruins, I believe, of an aqueduct. He smiled at my ignorance, and replied with a shrug: “ O no, Eccelenza; è un affare di tre, quatro cent’ anni.” ⁶

Then there is not only the legendary but the mythological; the lake of Avernus, poisonous with mephitic gases, so that birds flying across it dropped dead into its waves; the entrance by which Ulysses descended to the regions of the dead; and, not far distant, the Elysian Fields, Agrippa connected the waters of Avernus with the sea, drained its marshes, cut down the dark forests on the Avernine hills, sacred to Hecate; and since his day the lake is like any other quiet piece of water, with no hint of infernal entrance, nor of deadly exhalations fatal to the feathered tribe. While the Roman admiral was about it, it was a pity he did not drain the Elysian Fields also: they seemed to me, when I visited them, to resemble some of those new town sites on our Western rivers, where, according to Dickens, the speculator in lots got a fair proportion of water as well as land for his money.

The climate of Naples exhibits a marked contrast to ours in one particular, its constancy. The seasons seem to respect each other’s territory. Winter, as if content with its three months, encroaches on no others; never severe, yet scarcely a mild day intervening. So of summer, when it fairly sets in; the welcome afternoon sea-breeze being the only cooling agency. So of spring and autumn; never very warm, never cold; and each almost strictly running its ninety days. This equability of climate is at once pleasant and healthful. The range, during the five years I was there, did not exceed sixty-five degrees; from twenty-eight to ninety-three : not more than half the extreme variation in the United States.

There are but two drawbacks to all this : a rainy season in winter, of three or four weeks ; and, in summer, a succession of some sixty or seventy dusty, sultry days, —

until one wearies of the eternal blaze, and prays for clouds and showers.

I kept up open wood fires for more than three months of the year; but most of the houses occupied by natives, including those of the nobility, had no fire-places except in the kitchen. I have frequently, when ushered during wintry weather into luxurious apartments, found the lady occupants sitting around a brazier,⁷ with bonnets and thick shawls on; and when my visit was re turned, the visitor usually recoiled from my cheerful fire, “ fearing to take cold,” as I was told when I first looked my surprise.

Naples, notwithstanding her narrow, crowded, and often filthy streets, was healthy while I was there, except during the cholera of 1854.

It is when a season of pestilence overtakes us that a neglect of sanitary regulations tells; and seldom has this been more terribly exemplified than in Naples and other cities of the kingdom, during a year that will long be remembered there-

in Naples itself, the most populous of Italian cities, having four hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, the alarm was so great as to cause some fifty thousand persons to seek refuge elsewhere. The disease spread rapidly from the most densely populated quarters over the entire city, until the deaths acknowledged in the official returns numbered twelve or thirteen hundred a day; but this was probably an underestimate. This death-rate continued for two or three weeks, during which time there was seldom, either by day or night, an interval of more than five or ten minutes during which there did not reach me, from the street, the peculiar bell-tinkle which announced the passing of the Host, borne by a priest as viaticum to the dying. This melancholy iteration, sounding especially dismal during the still hours of midnight, told at last oil the hardiest nerves, and the Archbishop of Naples was petitioned to authorize its discontinuance. He replied that the rules of the church did not permit such an innovation.

This hierarch, whose name 1 regret to have forgotten, evinced, during these trying days, a courage and self-devotion which reminds one of Carlo Borromoo. Not only did he expend, in relief to the sufferers, every dollar he possessed, hut he sold his valuable service of plate, and used the proceeds in the same benevolent cause. He gave also his entire time to the sick, bringing to the lowliest beds temporal and spiritual comfort. On one occasion when, accompanied by three or four young priests, he was about to enter a squalid cellar in one of the poorest and most crowded alleys, he noticed the momentary hesitation of his attendants to follow him down the dark entrance-steps, and quietly said to them : “ Rest here till I return, my children. This is too much for you.”

In one of the streets near the centre of the city, the becchini⁸ reported but six persons remaining alive. These were removed to the Government Hospital,⁹ and the street was walled up at both ends.

As the epidemic increased, the inhabitants seemed afraid to leave their houses except when business required. The streets were comparatively deserted, and in the grounds ut the Villa Reale,¹⁰ where, in fine weather, from five hundred to a thousand visitors were wont to congregate, I met scarcely fifteen or twenty persons during my daily walks there, which I never discontinued.

At this time there came to see me, one day, our consul, Alexander Hammett; a worthy man and faithful officer, then eighty years old, who had been appointed to the Neapolitan consulate by Thomas Jefferson in 1800 and had occupied the post ever since. “ Mr. Owen,” he said, “ the cholera has appeared in the second street from where I live ; in a day or two it will reach us, and I shall take it and die.”

“ 1 dare say you will,7 ’ said I : “ those who are so confident of dying by the cholera usually do. But there are plenty of country places which the disease is not at all likely to reach, and where 1 think you would be safe. Why not leave the city for a few weeks, until the danger here is over ? I should be very sorry to lose so valuable an officer as you.”

“ It is kind in you to say so, and I had thought of going, but then I considered that it would tie you down here. Some one should be in the city to see about our citizens, in ease any arrive.”

“Make yourself easy on that score. I shall remain, whether you go or not. I do not in the least expect to take the cholera; and at all events it is useless to risk two lives.”

I did not see him again for six or seven weeks, when he returned much improved by his trip. Meanwhile three persons died in the house in which I had my apartments; a child on the floor above, .a sister of the por/ii re, and my coachman, in whom I lost an excellent servant. My family, fortunately, were absent at Stuttgart, where I had left them for a year, that the children might have the benefit of German teachers. No member of my household other than the coachman was attacked, except the stable-boy, who slept in a small room adjoining the stables which were in the lower floor of the palazzo, as is usual in that countryHe was attended by his mother; and when I found that his case was serious, I sent to ask if she would object to my giving him some cholera medicine which I had by me, compounded from a receipt with which the widow of an English officer, who had been many years in India, had kindly supplied me. I was careful not to urge the matter, knowing that the natives, with old tales of avvelenalori (poisoners) during the plague in their heads, often look with suspicion on such interference; and I was not surprised when my offer was rejected with many thanks. Later, however, when extreme unction had been administered to the poor fellow, I sent again ; and the reply was, that, as he was sure to die now, I might give him what I pleased. I found him in what seemed a state of collapse, and administered my remedy every ten minutes for two hours. At the end of that time he revived so much that I had him conveyed to the hospital, with a letter from myself to the governor, officially signed, which I knew would ensure attention to his case.

Several weeks later he came to see me, looking pale and thin, with a basket under his arm. “ May the Holy Virgin reward your Excellency ! ” he said; “ they treated me at the hospital like a prince. You saved my life; and all I have to give in return is these grapes,” uncovering his basket, “ from my mother’s little masseria,¹¹ which she sends with her blessing: ” a simple expression of gratitude which touched me much.

It was estimated that over thirty thousand Neapolitans perished ; probably one in twelve of those who remained in the city throughout the term of the disease. Yet the risk we ran and the sights we witnessed seemed as nothing when compared with the accounts which reached us from luckless Messina.

In that city, when the cholera broke out, the population was estimated at seventy-five thousand. About fifteen thousand, it is said, left (life, city; and out of the sixty thousand who remained upwards of one fourth died¹² within a period of six or eight weeks. No one except those who have passed the frightful ordeal can realize what such a rate of mortality involves. At the height of the distemper, not a coffin could be procured, and interment — to say nothing of funerals — was unthought of. The dead, sometimes naked, were laid on the sidewalk before each door; the deadcarts passed along twice a day; the bodies were pitched by the becchini on the accumulating heap, and carried off a mile or two to leeward of the city ; there to be piled up and burnt. In some cases the survivors in the house had not strength enough left to carry the corpses down-stairs, and cast them from the windows into the street. Hundreds, deserted, died alone; and their bodies were found, days afterward, by the searchers for the dead. Finally so many of the becchini themselves sank under the disease, or fled from their horrible task, that it was necessary to send to Naples to obtain recruits for the ghastly work.

Then, amid a hundred examples of the selfishness to which, alas! our frail nature is prone under temptation so fearful, there came to light deeds of heroism that outshine those ever done on the battle-field. While other foreign consuls at Messina fled from the imminent peril, our consul, an American of German parentage, named Behn, remained, with his brave wife, at his post, throughout the entire period of the epidemic. From morning till night that noble couple passed from house to house in the most infected portion of the city, encouraging by word and example, and dispensing medicine wherever they found the sufferers willing to receive it. Both were slightly attacked with cholerine; but, recovering in a day or two, they continued their exertions to the end, doubtless saving many lives.

The King, whom I had never known to communicate directly with any foreign commercial agent, caused his Minister of Foreign Affairs to address a letter to Mr. Behn, thanking him in the warmest terms, in his own name and in that of his Messinian subjects, for the courageous self-devotion shown during a period of such terror and suffering; and sent a copy of the letter to me. I inclosed a translation of it in a dispatch to our State Department, in which I narrated the chief incidents connected with the cholera at Messina, together with the conduct of the consul and his wife; adding a warm expression of my admiration and gratitude for the honor their conduct had conferred on our country and our common humanity.

I am sorry to have a sequel, which does little honor to one of our chief magistrates, to add here. In the summer of 1859, being then in Washington making a final settlement of my affairs as Minister, I learned that Mr. Behn would probably be dismissed from office and another appointed in his stead. At the Department I ascertained that the applicant based his claims upon important partisan services which he had rendered to Mr. Buchanan during the canvass for the Presidency in 1856. Thereupon I made a copy of my dispatch above referred to, and of my translation of the letter of thanks to Mr. Behn, and carried it to the Assistant Secretary of State, young Mr. Cass; his father, General Cass, then Secretary, being too ill to attend to business. When I had read these documents to Mr. Cass, he entered warmly into my views, and told me he expected to see the President that evening, and that the papers should be placed at once in his hands and his attention earnestly invited to them; “but,” he added, “I greatly fear it will be in vain. The claims of the applicant on account of electioneering services are pressed by influential politicians, and will probably outweigh all other considerations.”

“ Is the man well qualified ? " I asked,

“ Quite the reverse, I imagine. He speaks no language but English, and has no experience whatever in consular affairs.”

Mr. Cass, beyond doubt, did his best; but, as he himself had anticipated, without avail. Two days later I saw the new appointment officially announced.

Here was a public officer, eminently qualified for his position, as I myself can testify; faithful, experienced, speaking fluently French, English, and Italian; one who shed lustre on the country that sent him as her commercial representalive, and who was beloved and honored by those to whom he was sent: and this man — one of a thousand, whom it was hopeless to replace, richly deserving not maintenance in liis post only but advancement to a higher one — is curtly dismissed, like a malfeasant, from office, dismissed to make room for a political hack, skilled in party electioneering and sent abroad as consul on that account. While such things are, our government cannot prosper — ought not to prosper. So long as we permit abuses so flagrant, our people deserve to be miserably served, as, in a hundred cases daily coming to light, they are.

I was greatly tempted to send to the newspapers a full exposure of this disgraceful affair. But the preparation of a work, published a few months later, on the spontaneous phenomena of Spiritualism, engrossed, in those days, my time and thoughts; so I let it pass.

I afterwards learned that the new appointee, soon after his arrival at Messina, found it necessary to employ Mr. Behn to transact the consular business for him, allowing him half the salary. Finally, conscious probably of his own unfitness for the office, he resigned ; and Mr. Behn, reappointed, resumed the place.

I have more to say of my life in Naples, but in another chapter.

Robert Dale Owen.