Mezzoni the Brigand — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

MEZZONI THE BRIGAND. gt waters, the whole backed by the craggy, indented shore, with its stern, confused, volcanic rocks, its gay villages and its low fishing huts, hiding and dis- playing ruins which dated from the earliest steps of civilization. What an accumulation of wonders we had seen that eventful day since our three black horses abreast, decorated with plumes and bells, had swept along the gay Chiaja in the morning. Through that famous grotto of Posilipo, a passage which had echoed to the tramp of Roman legions, away to the half-extinct crater of Solfatara, and to the neighbor- ing grand amphitheater, with its wild beasts’ dens, the quarters of the gladiators, and the main walls extant. | Here thirty thousand spectators sometimes assem- bled to see men in the prime and vigor of life ‘“‘butchered to make a Roman holiday.’’ Classic ground indeed! And there, too, were various temples, all in partial ruins, as they should be after a thousand years and more. In the temple dedicated to Mercury, the Nea- politan peasant girls had danced with bare feet, for our amusement, the Tarantella, to the accompani- ment of their tambourines. Altogether it was a day to be long remembered, that delightful experience in the environs of. Naples. But to our story of these Italian brigands. When Garibaldi, that gallant soldier of the people, . the leader of the red-shirts, had turned over to Vic- tor Emmanuel the sovereignty of the southern por- tion of the peninsula, thus making perfect the regal splendor of his crown and Completing the union of Italy, the grateful monarch would have ennobled the brave sailor and soldier. Garibaldi, however, de- Eomicbooks.co