Washington sentinel., 1898-07-02
Street Scenes I'm Naples.
The LKdeate M0NfhIV.

ne LH0gdt AhONfNfPs
One of the stTangest contrasts IN
Naples is to walk from the royal
palace with its hne marble stair
case up the new Corso Re d Italia,
and to climb into the steep streets
around the church of San Severino
Socio. These streets are the
dwelling place OF dyers. and one
steps from regal magnificence into
a crowd of semi-naked people who
are busily dipping great hanks OF
cotton or wool into seething cal
drons. AS elsewhere, the work is
carried on in the street, and little
streams OF water--red, yellow,
brown and black pour oyer the
rough stones, and gather in multi
colored pools, whilst on low
benches against the walls women
are washing clothes, standing in
the dirty soapy water that splashes
over from their tubs. The pass
ers-by walk heedlessly through
the dye and soap suds, whilst the
children 6ndpleasant occupation in
throwing mud of every variety of
color at anybody who chances to
be wearing light colored garments.
II is a verltable feast OF color from
the merely spectacular point of
view, but visit to these streets
leaves a bodily as we'll as a mental
impression. Very often in the
depth of these sordid alleys one
comes across forgotten old pal
ace, built when carriages we're un-
known, its great court Of honor
crowded with booths, its vast halls
filled with a heterogeneous collec-
ton of men, women and children,
fowls, goats. sheep. and occasion
ally a donkey, ali living together
in the happiest proximity. The
massive old walls are hidden be-
meath centuries OF dirt; the wood
work has, for the most part, dis
appeared, the rooms that once
knew the revels of Angevin mobiles
now shelter the haphazard exist
ence ofkassar0ni.
With the blue waters ofthe Bay
of Naples ever at their feet and the
blue of a southern sky above
them, the poorer Neapolitans are
able to support lite under condi-
tions which would annihilate a
northern race; and they certainly
make more noise than any other
people IN Europe. Late in the
the Toledo, the princi-
pal street,i is full OF shrieking hawk
ers and gforNaiiSEt. or newsvendors,
who rush madlV through the
throng: an unceasing line OF car
riages roll over the rough stones,
with perpetual cracking OF whips
and wild shouts, and all the
world seems to have gone mad.
On the other side OF the Corso Re
d'Italia itinerant cooks, sitting at
their stoves in the open air, or un-
der awning sell fish, macaroni and
meat, whilst at the Villa del Po-
polo and the Porto Capitana, quack
doctors lecture on their nostrums
to large crowds Of idle and credu-
lous iolk, drowning the stri'lent
voices of the public readers, who
declaim passages from Tasso,
Ariosto and other poets, to those
who care to pay two centimes for
the dubious pleasure OF listening
to them. Everywhere there is
deafening noise, which once or
twice day is silence d by the pas
sage OF a funeral procession es-
corted by the masked and dis
guised members OF the brother
hood to which the diseased has be-
longed. Flocks Of goats with
bells are driven through
the streets at all hours OF the day,
up to the top story OF the
highest houses in order to be
MIXED at the purchasers own
door. Cows, too, are MIXED in
the same way, the housewife de-
s2ending into the street and waiting
her turn to hand tine cowkeeper
her jug or basin, which he fills
from the patient and long suffer
ing animal. The facreS are cheap,
and the horses, driven without bits,
rush along the streets at hand
gallop-unless they are engaged
by the hour. NOISE, dirt, indes-
cribable squalor, shameless beg
gary and nerve irritation, are the
memoriei the traveller bears away
from Bella Na6OE; but if he goes
to Porto, to Santa Lucia and Mer-
cato, he will also possess the mem
ory ofa marvellous kaleidoscope OF
color which he will never see
again, since much of It is happily
threatened by the wholesale des-
tructiOn Of these unsalubrious
quarters. The work is known as
the sVeNtyameNtO, and has already
the worst parts OF the city,
giving space and sunshine to
of people who. like their
forefathers before them, have lived
in the depths of cellars, without
light and without air.