The Argosy — page 325: what you’re looking at

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

In Sunny Climes. 311 At all times the furious driving of the Neapolitans is proverbial. It is probably not to be equalled in any other town in the world. They rush up and down streets and across squares, and turn corners like a whirlwind. Here again there is no rule of road, no more system than in a stampede of wild horses in a pathless prairie. And probably nowhere else are there such wonderful country carts, painted all the colours of the rainbow, with all sorts of wonder- ful signs and devices. What is yet more wonderful is the way in which these carts are laden with human freight. You will see a dozen in a vehicle that was never made to carry half that number. How they pack themselves is a mystery, but they are all the happier for their makeshift positions. Often, indeed, they are uproarious, and rival each other in shouting out bacchanalian songs. With them, as with a good many others, noise means happiness. The heights about Naples add very much to its attractions. From them you obtain some of the finest views in the world. Naples itself is opened out before you, an endless extent of streets and houses. You see the three ports crowded with shipping ; its quays lined with porters and touters waiting for their prey; a great part of them idle and dishonest, utterly worthless and unprincipled. They lounge about, and only show signs of activity when a steamer is approaching and they prepare to pounce upon some victim. These nuisances ought to be put down with the strong arm of the law, but they are not; and through them, and through the almost more intolerable nuisance of the beggars, whose name is legion, the Neapo- litans have received a bad name they by no means deserve. The true Neapolitan is industrious and very hard-working ; he often battles with adverse circumstances in a manner that does him infinite credit. No doubt that happy spirit, that light-hearted temperament, that habit of taking things as they come, has much to do with it. For the Neapolitan is “ toujours gai,” as the French song has it; and in that respect he is very much like his far-off French brother. One of the most interesting buildings on the heights of Naples is the Convent of San Martino. It was formerly inhabited by monks of the Carthusian order, but its halls and corridors now respond a mournful silence only. All the beauty of architecture remains: the magnificent cloisters ; the picturesque and inevitable well; the small cemetery where dead-and-gone monks have returned to dust and sleep in peace. Here chartreuse will be offered you, and the aubergiste in the restaurant outside the sacred precincts will tell you it is still made there. For my own part I only believe in that which comes from the mother establishment in the Alps of Dauphiné. There you may find the monks still flourishing in their stronghold, their distillery in full operation ; and from thence they send their liqueur, which might tempt a saint to transgression, all over the world. It is one of EOMRRIC OOO SS (GO)