While the beggar-man, miles off, was merrily turning
Greg's gold into whiskey, and fearlessly burning
The throats of himself and companions in revel,
Ever giving this toast, "Griper Greg at the devil!"

THE ROVING ENGLISHMAN.

BEAUTIFUL NAPLES.

WITH the curious felicity which
distinguished throughout the proceedings at
Marseilles of the owners and Captain of the
Great Do, we arrived at Civita Vecchia in
the middle of one night, and started thence at
an hour which enabled us to arrive at Naples
in the middle of the next:  thus wasting twenty
hours in a passage of forty-eight. It was
nearly ten o'clock on the following morning
before we got on shore. Every book was seized
belonging to one traveller except a volume of
Byron's "Don Juan" (vehemently forbidden),
which the inspecting officer passed by, to show
his learning, with the word "Dictionary."

Hi, ho, ha! Ayah! Hi, ha, ha! Hoo!
Are the people mad? Else why do they shout,
and cry, and beg, and go a hunting over each
other's heads in this wonderful January
sunshine? No less than fourteen beggars crowd
round the ricketty high-wheeled machine, on
which I and my baggage are hoisted, with a
caution from the lacquais de place who has
already pounced upon me, to keep my carpetbag
between my legs, lest it should be stolen.

Hi; ha! Hoorooh! Ayah! Clack!
clack! clack! Smack! Hoorooh! Ayah,
a—yah! The gay harness glitters, and the
little horse canters, and the people shout, and
buy and sell, and talk, and fling about their
limbs in the market-place.

When we are shown into the Victoria
Hotel, I exclaim to the waiter: "But,rny friend,
you are not going to lodge me, one of the plain
nobodies of the world, in these fine rooms."

"They are the only rooms vacant," he
replies.

"And their price?"

"Seven francs a day."

"Dinner?"

"Four francs."

"Breakfast?"

"Three francs, à la fourchette."

"Fire?"

"Five francs each basket of wood enough
for three days."

"Servants?"

"A franc a day."

So that my expenses will be between
sixteen and seventeen francs a day. Lodged
like a prince, with a sitting-room as large as
a duchess's drawing-room.

Except in Scotland, where you may see a
stout cob pull a railway train, I had no idea
what one little skinny miserable horse could
do until I perambulated the streets of Naples.
There is a popular car in the shape of a species
of coach-box placed on a long flat board
between two high wheels. It is drawn by
one horse, and the shafts come up higher than
his shoulder. If the intelligent Londoner
will think of the principle of a Hansom's cab,
he will have some idea of what I mean. These
things do not carry one person, or two persons,
or three, or four, or five, but as many as can
get into the box, stand on the board, hang on
behind, or on each other, stand up, or sit down,
in any possible manner about it. Yet the
little horse, about as large as a child's pony,
pricks his ears at the crack of the whip, and
canters away with this mass of shouting,
laughing, singing, orange-eating life behind
him, as if he had but a go-cart. The fact is,
from the construction of the carriage and the
admirable manner in which it is balanced, it
pushes itself.

A word, however, about the Neapolitan
"tadines" (a corruption probably of the word
Citadine); they are little open hooded carriages
on four wheels, drawn by one horse, and are
quite a characteristic of Naples. They go very
fast, and when you call one, they start off like
a pea out of a pop-gun, and never wait for a
moment to learn where you are going. Their
drivers are among the most honest and best
conducted men in Naples, and you never
have a dispute about a fare. Though as far
as I can see also, everything in Naples is to
the full as dear as in London (people who
live here say dearer), the demand for
whisking you from one end of the town to
the other is not quite fivepence. They
might be a little cleaner and better to be
sure; but they are not so dirty as our cabs,
go much faster, and cost a very great
deal less. The consequence is, nobody walks
in Naples, and you have only to show
yourself at a doorway for three or four of
them to come gallopping up, laughing and
quarrelling, before perhaps you have an
idea of getting into any one of them. It
was odd to me, at first, that nobody got
hurt in them, as they tear at a racing pace
over the flat pavement; but a very short
trial enabled me to feel quite at my ease and
as safe in one of them as in an arm-chair.
The pavement of flat rough stones is, I
confess, the chief secret. I do not recommend
it for London because I have no information
to guide me as to its cost; and correct answers
from official sources are not, I am told, to be
thought of here. But this I know, that it is
easy, safe, and noiseless, which no London
pavement ever was or is; and if the proper stone
is to be got at a fair price, the sooner we lay it
down from Piccadilly to Wapping he better.

The coachman in his short brown jacket
and flower-pot hat, has on a pair of check
trousers given him last year by a traveller,
and has worn them ever since. He is a cheerful
sort of fellow—the very beau ideal of a
good-for-nothing lazy genius who will take
to nothing but to driving somebody else's
horse. He knows almost everybody we pass
(sure sign of an unsteady gentleman). There
are plainly some one or two he would rather
not see; and once or twice I fancied he was