ignor Adam signed the marriage-contract with
Signora Eva."

After incredible difficulties a contract had been drawn up and
signed by the horny thumb of a certain big vetturino, who went by the
name of "II Piccolo." It was to the effect that, for a certain
specified sum, Il Piccolo should take the party to Paestum and back
with a detour to Sorrento.

It was a most delightful morning. All were in the best of spirits.
So they started. On for miles through interminable streets of houses
that bordered the circular shore, through crowds of sheep, droves of
cattle, dense masses of human beings, through which innumerable
caleches darted like meteors amid the stars of heaven. Here came the
oxen of Southern Italy, stately, solemn, long-horned, cream-colored;
there marched great droves of Sorrento hogs--the hog of hogs--a
strange but not ill-favored animal, thick in hide, leaden in color,
hairless as a hippopotamus. The flesh of the Sorrento hog bears the
same relation to common pork that "Lubin's Extrait" bears to the
coarse scent of a country grocery. A pork-chop from the Sorrento
animal comes to the palate with the force of a new revelation; it is
the highest possibility of pork--the apotheosis of the pig! Long lines
of macaroni-cooks doing an enormous business; armies of dealers in
anisette; crowds of water-carriers; throngs of fishermen, carrying
nets and singing merry songs--"Ecco mi!" "Ecco la!"--possible
Massaniellos every man of them, I assure you, Sir. And--enveloping
all, mingling with all, jostling all, busy with the busiest, idle
with the idlest, noisy with the noisest, jolly with the jolliest,
the fat, oily, swarthy, rosy--(etc., for further epithets see
preceding pages)--_Lazaroni_!

Every moment produces new effects in the ever-shifting scenes of
Naples. Here is the reverse of monotony; if any thing becomes
wearisome, it is the variety. Here is the monotony of incessant
change. The whole city, with all its vast suburbs, lives on the
streets.

The Senator wiped his fevered brow. He thought that for crowds,
noise, tumult, dash, hurry-skurry, gayety, life, laughter, joyance,
and all that incites to mirth, and all that stirs the soul, even New
York couldn't hold a candle to Naples.

Rabelais ought to have been a Neapolitan.

Then, as the city gradually faded into the country, the winding road
opened up before them with avenues of majestic trees--overhanging,
arching midway--forming long aisles of shade. Myrtle