We took carriages at nine o'clock to Resina, a drive of four miles, and one of exceeding interest, if you wish to see Naples life.The way is round the curving bay by the sea; but so continuously built up is it, and so inclosed with high walls of villas, through the open gates of which the golden oranges gleam, that you seem never to leave the city.The streets and quays swarm with the most vociferous, dirty, multitudinous life.It is a drive through Rag Fair.The tall, whitey-yellow houses fronting the water, six, seven, eight stories high, are full as beehives; people are at all the open windows; garments hang from the balconies and from poles thrust out;up every narrow, gloomy, ascending street are crowds of struggling human shapes; and you see how like herrings in a box are packed the over half a million people of Naples.In front of the houses are the markets in the open air,--fish, vegetables, carts of oranges; in the sun sit women spinning from distaffs or weaving fishing-nets; and rows of children who were never washed and never clothed but once, and whose garments have nearly wasted away; beggars, fishermen in red caps, sailors, priests, donkeys, fruit-venders, street-musicians, carriages, carts, two-wheeled break-down vehicles,--the whole tangled in one wild roar and rush and babel,--a shifting, varied panorama of color, rags,--a pandemonium such as the world cannot show elsewhere, that is what one sees on the road to Resina.The drivers all drive in the streets here as if they held a commission from the devil, cracking their whips, shouting to their horses, and dashing into the thickest tangle with entire recklessness.They have one cry, used alike for getting more speed out of their horses or for checking them, or in warning to the endangered crowds on foot.It is an exclamatory grunt, which may be partially expressed by the letters "a-e-ugh." Everybody shouts it, mule-driver, "coachee," or cattle-driver; and even I, a passenger, fancied I could do it to disagreeable perfection after a time.Out of this throng in the streets I like to select the meek, patient, diminutive little donkeys, with enormous panniers that almost hide them.One would have a woman seated on top, with a child in one pannier and cabbages in the other; another, with an immense stock of market-greens on his back, or big baskets of oranges, or with a row of wine-casks and a man seated behind, adhering, by some unknown law of adhesion, to the sloping tail.Then there was the cart drawn by one diminutive donkey, or by an ox, or by an ox and a donkey, or by a donkey and horse abreast, never by any possibility a matched team.And, funniest of all, was the high, two-wheeled caleche, with one seat, and top thrown back, with long thills and poor horse.Upon this vehicle were piled, Heaven knows how, behind, before, on the thills, and underneath the high seat, sometimes ten, and not seldom as many as eighteen people, men, women, and children,--all in flaunting rags, with a colored scarf here and there, or a gay petticoat, or a scarlet cap,--perhaps a priest, with broad black hat, in the center,--driving along like a comet, the poor horse in a gallop, the bells on his ornamented saddle merrily jingling, and the whole load in a roar of merriment.
But we shall never get to Vesuvius at this rate.I will not even stop to examine the macaroni manufactories on the road.The long strips of it were hung out on poles to dry in the streets, and to get a rich color from the dirt and dust, to say nothing of its contact with the filthy people who were making it.I am very fond of macaroni.At Resina we take horses for the ascent.We had sent ahead for a guide and horses for our party of ten; but we found besides, I should think, pretty nearly the entire population of the locality awaiting us, not to count the importunate beggars, the hags, male and female, and the ordinary loafers of the place.We were besieged to take this and that horse or mule, to buy walking-sticks for the climb, to purchase lava cut into charms, and veritable ancient coins, and dug-up cameos, all manufactured for the demand.
One wanted to hold the horse, or to lead it, to carry a shawl, or to show the way.In the midst of infinite clamor and noise, we at last got mounted, and, turning into a narrow lane between high walls, began the ascent, our cavalcade attended by a procession of rags and wretchedness up through the village.Some of them fell off as we rose among the vineyards, and they found us proof against begging;but several accompanied us all day, hoping that, in some unguarded moment, they could do us some slight service, and so establish a claim on us.Among these I noticed some stout fellows with short ropes, with which they intended to assist us up the steeps.If Ilooked away an instant, some urchin would seize my horse's bridle;and when I carelessly let my stick fall on his hand, in token for him to let go, he would fall back with an injured look, and grasp the tail, from which I could only loosen him by swinging my staff and preparing to break his head.