he gave me an order on his house at Naples for a
barrel of muscatel wine, and he presented me with a splendid box
containing twelve razors with silver handles, manufactured in the
Tour-du-Grec. We parted the best friends in the world and well pleased
with each other.

I remained two days in Salerno to provide myself with linen and other
necessaries. Possessing about one hundred sequins, and enjoying good
health, I was very proud of my success, in which I could not see any
cause of reproach to myself, for the cunning I had brought into play to
insure the sale of my secret could not be found fault with except by the
most intolerant of moralists, and such men have no authority to speak on
matters of business. At all events, free, rich, and certain of presenting
myself before the bishop with a respectable appearance, and not like a
beggar, I soon recovered my natural spirits, and congratulated myself
upon having bought sufficient experience to insure me against falling a
second time an easy prey to a Father Corsini, to thieving gamblers, to
mercenary women, and particularly to the impudent scoundrels who
barefacedly praise so well those they intend to dupe--a species of knaves
very common in the world, even amongst people who form what is called
good society.

I left Salerno with two priests who were going to Cosenza on business,
and we traversed the distance of one hundred and forty-two miles in
twenty-two hours. The day after my arrival in the capital of Calabria, I
took a small carriage and drove to Martorano. During the journey, fixing
my eyes upon the famous mare Ausonaum, I felt delighted at finding myself
in the middle of Magna Grecia, rendered so celebrated for twenty-four
centuries by its connection with Pythagoras. I looked with astonishment
upon a country renowned for its fertility, and in which, in spite of
nature's prodigality, my eyes met everywhere the aspect of terrible
misery, the complete absence of that pleasant superfluity which helps man
to enjoy life, and the degradation of the inhabitants sparsely scattered
on a soil where they ought to be so numerous; I felt ashamed to
acknowledge them as originating from the same stock as myself. Such is,
however the Terra di Lavoro where labour seems to be execrated, where
everything is cheap, where the miserable inhabitants consider that they
have made a good bargain when they have found anyone disposed to take
care of the fruit which the ground supplies almost