et off at seven for Naples; we observed
remains of an aqueduct in a narrow, apparently designed for the purpose
of leading water to La Cava, but had no time to conjecture on the
subject, and took our road back to Pompeii, and passed through two towns
of the same name, Nocera dei [Cristiani] and Nocera dei Pagani.[521] In
the latter village the Saracens obtained a place of refuge, from which
it takes the name. It is also said that the circumstance is kept in
memory by the complexion and features of this second Nocera, which are
peculiarly of the African caste and tincture. After we passed Pompeii,
where the continued severity of the weather did not permit us, according
to our purpose, to take another survey, we saw in the adjacent village
between us and Portici the scene of two assassinations, still kept in
remembrance. The one I believe was from the motive of plunder. The head
of the assassin was set up after his execution upon a pillar, which
still exists, and it remained till the skull rotted to pieces. The other
was a story less in the common style, and of a more interesting
character:--A farmer of an easy fortune, and who might be supposed to
leave to his daughter, a very pretty girl and an only child, a fortune
thought in the village very considerable. She was, under the hope of
sharing such a prize, made up to by a young man in the neighbourhood,
handsome, active, and of a very good general character. He was of that
sort of person who are generally successful among women, and the girl
was supposed to have encouraged his addresses; but her father, on being
applied to, gave him a direct and positive refusal. The gallant resolved
to continue his addresses in hopes of overcoming this obstacle by his
perseverance, but the father's opposition seemed only to increase by the
lover's pertinacity. At length, as the father walked one evening smoking
his pipe upon the terrace before his door, the lover unhappily passed
by, and, struck with the instant thought that the obstacle to the
happiness of his life was now entirely in his own power, he rushed upon
the father, pierced him with three mortal stabs of his knife, and killed
him dead on the spot, and made his escape to the mountains. What was
most remarkable was that he was protected against the police, who went,
as was their duty, in quest of him, by the inhabitants of the
neighbourhood, who afforded him both shelter and such food as he
required, looking on him less as a wilf