But what pleased Rollo and Josie most was to stroll along a street in a part of the town where the sailors lived. It was at a place where there was a wide beach, which was entirely covered with fishing boats, that had been drawn up there on the sand. Between the boats and the street there was a level place, where the fishermen's families had established themselves. Some were making or mending nets. Some were frying fish in the open air. Some were gathered around a big stone with a flat top, which they were using for a table, and were eating their breakfast or their dinner there. Some were lying stretched out upon the ground, or curled up in corners, fast asleep.
It was a very curious sight to see, and it would have been a very pretty one, had it not been that almost all these people were clothed in rags, and looked like so many beggars. Indeed, there were a great many real beggars every where about,-so many, in fact, that no lady could have any peace at all in walking about the streets of Naples, on account of their importunity. Mrs. Gray and Rosie would have liked very much to have walked about with Rollo and Josie, in the excursions which they made in this way; but they could not do it, for every where they went, such a number of poor, diseased, crippled, and wretched-looking objects came up to them, and gathered around them, as to destroy all the pleasure.
There is no need of this at all; for Naples is a very thrifty place, and the people that live in it are abundantly able to take care of their poor. They have, in fact, built hospitals and endowed them, and the poor people who have no friends to take care of them might go to the hospitals if they chose. But as the climate in that country is mild, and they can live well enough in the open air, they prefer to ramble about the streets and beg, and there are enough inconsiderate people among the visitors always at Naples, from foreign countries, to give them money sufficient to keep up the system.
Thus every person among the lower classes in Naples, who has any disease, or infirmity, or malformation of any kind, considers it a treasure, and comes out into the street to exhibit it to all beholders, as a means of gaining money. No imagination can conceive more shocking and disgusting spectacles than those which the police of Naples allow to be brought up right before every lady or gentleman who attempts to take a walk in the streets. These sights meet you at every turn. Even if you take a carriage, you do not escape from them; for the beggars crowd around the carriage when you get into it, at the door of the hotel, and watch for it there when you come back. And when you stop on the way to go into a shop, all that are in that street at the time gather up and wait at the door till you come out; and while you are getting into the carriage, and the coachman is shutting the door and mounting upon his box, they implore, and moan, and beg, and entreat you to give them a little money. They are so wretched, they say, they are dying of hunger.
A great many of these people are really poor, no doubt; but they have no right thus to force their poverty and their diseases upon the attention of the public, when other modes, and far better modes, are provided for their relief. A great many of them, however, are impostors. Indeed, one of the greatest objections to the system of allowing the poor to get their living by begging in the streets, is the direct tendency of it to encourage and train impostors. No one can possibly know from hearing the complaint of a poor person by the wayside, or from the appearance which he presents, either how much he needs help, or how much help he may have already received; and of course, by this mode of dispensing charity, the best possible facilities are afforded for every species of deceit and imposture.
Mrs. Gray understood all this, and she saw that if every body would firmly and perseveringly refuse to give money to applicants in the public streets, the system of making an ostentatious parade of misery, real and counterfeited, that now prevails in Naples, would soon come to an end. She accordingly never gave any thing, neither did Mr. George or Rollo. Indeed Rollo and Josie were seldom molested when they were walking by themselves, for the beggars-considering them as only two boys-did not expect to get any thing from them.
"The only beggar that I ever gave any thing to in Naples," said Rollo, "was a poor black dog. I gave him half of a fried cake that I bought at a stall. He swallowed it in an instant. I call him a beggar because he looked up into my face so piteously, though he did not ask for any thing. He did not speak a word."
"And what did he do after you gave him the cake?" asked Rosie.
"He looked up a moment to see if I was going to give him any more," said Rollo, "and then he walked away."
CHAPTER XI. AN EXCURSION.
"Uncle George," said Rollo one morning, while he and Mr. George were eating their breakfast in the dining room, or, as they call it in Europe, the salle à manger, of the hotel, "how much longer are you going to be in studying out those things in the museum?"
"Why?" asked Mr. George. "Does your comfort or enjoyment depend in any way on the decision of that question?"
"Only we want you to go about with us, somewhere," said Rollo.
"Why, you don't need me to go about with you," said Mr. George. "Contrive some sort of excursion yourself, and take the ladies out and amuse them. You might take them out to see Pozzuoli and the Solfatara. Besides, you would be doing me a great service if you would go."
"How?" asked Rollo.
"Why, I shall want to go by and by myself," said Mr. George, "and I don't want to have any trouble in finding the way. But you like finding your way about. Now, I wish you would take a carriage, and go and take the ladies on an excursion along the bay to the westward, and show them Virgil's Tomb, and the Grotto of Posilipo, and Pozzuoli, where the apostle Paul landed on his famous journey to Rome, and the temple of Serapis, half under water, and the great amphitheatre, and the Solfatara, which is the crater of a volcano almost extinct. All these things lie pretty near together along the shores of the bay to the westward of Naples, and you can go and see them in one afternoon, they say. If you go first, you will find out all about the excursion, and what we do about guides and custodians at the different places; and then, when I get ready, you can go again and take me, and I shall not have any trouble about it."
"Just give me a list of all those places," said Rollo, eagerly.
As he spoke he handed Mr. George a pencil and a piece of paper, which he took out of his pocket. Mr. George wrote down the list, and Rollo, taking it, went up to Mrs. Gray's room.
Rollo proposed the plan to Mrs. Gray of making the excursion which Mr. George had indicated, and she was very much pleased with it.
"We'll study it all out in the guide books this evening," said Rollo, "and then to-morrow we will go."
Mrs. Gray approved of this plan, and so Rollo looked out in the guide book the account which was given there of the several places and objects of interest on Mr. George's list, and read the passages aloud to the whole party. Rosie sat beside him on the sofa, and helped him find the places, and also looked over him while he read. The account which was given of the places was very interesting indeed.