The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton (Vol. 1&2). Lady Isabel Burton
who would not join us.
At Naples more was added to the work of education. Caraccioli, the celebrated marine painter, was engaged to teach oil-painting; but he was a funny fellow, and the hours which should have been spent in exhausting palettes passed in pencil-caricaturing of every possible friend and acquaintance. The celebrated Cavalli was the fencing-master; and in those days the Neapolitan school, which has now almost died out, was in its last bloom. It was a thoroughly business-like affair, and rejected all the elegances of the French school; and whenever there was a duel between a Neapolitan and a Frenchman, the former was sure to win. We boys worked at it heart and soul, and generally managed to give four hours a day to it. I determined, even at that time, to produce a combination between the Neapolitan and the French school, so as to supplement the defects of the one by the merits of the other. A life of very hard work did not allow me any leisure to carry out my plan; but the man of perseverance stores up his resolve, and waits for any number of years till he sees the time to carry it out. The plan was made in 1836, and was completed in 1880 (forty-four years).1
My father spared no pains or expense in educating his children. He had entered the army at a very early age. Volunteers were called for in Ireland, and those who brought a certain number into the field received commissions gratis. The old Grandmamma Burton's tenants' sons volunteered by the dozen. They formed a very fair company, and accompanied the young master to the wars; and when the young master got his commission, they all, with the exception of one or two, levanted, bolted, and deserted. Thus my father found himself an officer at the age of seventeen, when he ought to have been at school; and recognizing the deficiencies of his own education, he was determined that his children should complain of nothing of the kind. He was equally determined they none of them should enter the army; the consequence being that both the sons became soldiers, and the only daughter married a soldier. Some evil spirit, probably Mr. Du Pré, whispered that the best plan for the boys would be to send them to Oxford, in order that they might rise by literature, an idea which they both thoroughly detested. However, in order to crush their pride, they were told that they should enter "Oxford College as sizars, poor gentlemen who are supported by the alms of the others." Our feelings may be imagined. We determined to enlist, or go before the mast, or to turn Turks, banditti, or pirates, rather than undergo such an indignity.
Parthenope was very beautiful; but so true is English blood, that the most remarkable part of it was "Pickwick," who happened to make his way there at the time of the sojourn of our family. We read with delight the description of the English home. We passed our nights, as well as our days, devouring the book, and even "Ettore Fieramosca" and the other triumphs of Massimo d'Azelio were mere outsiders compared with it; but how different the effect of the two books—"Pickwick," the good-humoured caricature of a boy full of liquor and good spirits, and the "Disfida di Barletta," one of the foundation-stones of Italian independence.
At last the house on the Chiaja was given up, and the family took a house inside the City for a short time. The father was getting tired and thinking of starting northwards. The change was afflicting. The loss of the view of the Bay was a misfortune. The only amusement was prospecting the streets, where the most extraordinary scenes took place. It was impossible to forget a beastly Englishman, as he stood eating a squirting orange surrounded by a string of gutter-boys. The dexterity of the pickpockets, too, gave scenes as amusing as a theatre. It was related of one of the Coryphæi that he had betted with a friend that he would take the pocket-handkerchief of an Englishman, who had also betted that no man born in Naples could pick his pocket. A pal walked up to the man as he was promenading the streets, flower in button-hole, solemnly spat on his cravat, and ran away. The principal, with thorough Italian politeness, walked up to the outraged foreigner, drew his pocket-handkerchief and proceeded to remove the stain, exhorted the outraged one to keep the fugitive in sight, and in far less time than it takes to tell, transferred the handkerchief to his own pocket, and set out in pursuit of the barbaro.
Cholera.
The lazzaroni, too, were a perpetual amusement. We learned to eat maccaroni like them, and so far mastered their dialect, that we could exchange chaff by the hour. In 1869 I found them all at Monte Video and Buenos Ayres, dressed in cacciatore and swearing "M'nnaccia l'anima tua;" they were impressed with a conviction that I was myself a lazzarone in luck. The shady side of the picture was the cholera. It caused a fearful destruction, and the newspapers owned to 1300 a day, which meant say 2300. The much-abused King behaved like a gentleman. The people had determined that the cholera was poison, and doubtless many made use of the opportunity to get rid of husbands and wives and other inconvenient relationships; but when the mob proceeded to murder the doctors, and to gather in the market square with drawn knives, declaring that the Government had poisoned the provisions, the King himself drove up in a phaeton and jumped out of it entirely alone, told them to put up their ridiculous weapons, and to show him where the poisoned provisions were, and, seating himself upon a bench, ate as much as his stomach would contain. Even the lazzarone were not proof against this heroism, and viva'd and cheered him to his heart's content.
My brother and I had seen too much of cholera to be afraid of it. We had passed through it in France, it had followed us to Siena and Rome, and at Naples it only excited our curiosity. We persuaded the Italian man-servant to assist us in a grand escapade. He had procured us the necessary dress, and when the dead-carts passed round in the dead of the night, we went the rounds with them as some of the croquemorts. The visits to the pauper houses, where the silence lay in the rooms, were anything but pleasant, and still less the final disposal of the bodies. Outside Naples was a large plain, pierced with pits, like the silos or underground granaries of Algeria and North Africa. They were lined with stone, and the mouths were covered with one big slab, just large enough to allow a corpse to pass. Into these flesh-pots2 were thrown the unfortunate bodies of the poor, after being stripped of the rags which acted as their winding-sheets. Black and rigid, they were thrown down the apertures like so much rubbish, into the festering heap below, and the decay caused a kind of lambent blue flame about the sides of the pit, which lit up a mass of human corruption, worthy to be described by Dante.
Our escapades, which were frequent, were wild for strictly brought up Protestant English boys—they would be nothing now, when boys do so much worse—but there were others that were less excusable. Behind the Chiaja dwelt a multitude of syrens, who were naturally looked upon as the most beautiful of their sex. One lady in particular responded to the various telegraphic signs made to her from the flat terrace of the house, and we boys determined to pay her a visit. Arming ourselves with carving-knives, which we stuffed behind our girdles, we made our way jauntily into the house, introduced ourselves, and being abundant in pocket-money, offered to stand treat, as the phrase is, for the whole neighbourhood. The orgie was tremendous, and we were only too lucky to get home unhurt, before morning, when the Italian servant let us in. The result was a correspondence, consisting in equal parts of pure love on our side and extreme debauchery on the syrens'. These letters, unfortunately, were found by our mother during one of her Sunday visitations to our chambers. A tremendous commotion was the result. Our father and his dog, Mr. Du Pré, proceeded to condign punishment with the horsewhip; but we climbed up to the tops of the chimneys, where the seniors could not follow us, and refused to come down till the crime was condoned.
This little business disgusted our father of Naples, and he resolved to repair to a pure moral air. Naples is a very different place now; so is all the Italy frequented by travellers, and spoiled by railways and officialdom.
In 1881 a distinguished officer, and a gentleman allied to Royalty, wrote as follows: "You threw some doubts on the efficiency of the Italian posts, and I believe you; I don't think I was ever so glad to get home. At Malta it looks so clean after the filth of Naples. I think Italy, the Italians, their manners, customs, and institutions, more damnable every time I see them, and feel sure you will meet with less annoyance during your travels on the Gold Coast, than I met with coming through Italy. Trains crowded, unpunctual; starvation, filth, incivility, and extortion at every step; and, were it not that there are so many works of art and of interest to see, I doubt if any one would care to visit the country a second time."
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