ROUND THE WORLD PAPERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11854, 4 January 1902, Page 1 (Supplement)

ROUND THE WORLD PAPERS.

0 : l ■■..,.: •— ■ 3e No. xxm. 2id ■-■■■: [BY THE REV. J. BEERY.] iV , _1 ■ 'y.i NAPLES TO AUSTRALIA. 10 (Concluded. Ix my last paper I dropped the threads at ,_ Pompeii, and had no space to dwell upon le the beautiful city of which Pompeii is but r- a suburb in ruins. ; Naples . contains: more '. l .° than half a million inhabitants, and is built " upon a lovely site, about the middle of the ■h curve Which has made the fame of the Bay e of Naples world-wide. On one'side is an )f, old monastery and castle,- and on the other , is Vesuvius, with its perpetually: ascending .0 column of smoke. Hardly had the - -steamer ,e come to anchor,before a boat was alongside 0 with three men fiddling, and a girl singing, d the girl when the song was finished holding '?; an umbrella the reverse side up, with which h she caught the coppers flung to her, with the '.t skill of a practised hand. Then came divers, ,t sellers of fruit and flowers, and soon -the' i- decks swarmed with vendors of all sorts of I, wares. It was soon evident \ that'the/pro-: i- verb about " a fool and his money being soon g parted" was applied; by the Neapolitans; to it the tourists on Australian liners, and ''that they meant that it should be parted to them, e The prices they asked for their knick-knacks/ if had hardly any appreciable relation to the f t amount they were willing to : take. The t descent from 7u 6d to Sd was quite common. ;, When we landed from the tender what a r crowd on the wharf we had to fight through! t Beggars and traders and. cabmen shouted - and. implored and whined and gesticulated t until it seemed hardly possible for us to ■- fight our way to the. carriage we had already ; , engaged. Then they ran after us along the '■• streets. If the carriage stopped a moment .-; they were around us like ' swarms of flies, 3 until we ceased to be cross, and gave ourselves Up to the funny aspect of the thing. J TWO BEAUTIFUL CHURCHES . . j j were first visited. The first of these, .the / :< Church of Jesu, was one of the most glorious ? I have seen. The architecture was Corine thian, and the .• interior was glowing* i x paint and gold. Service was going.,on in ] ,r one or two side chapels. Kneeling--. women'i 1 were confessing to , priests . in the boxes pro--1 vided for the purpose, while streams , of . tourists were staring at the building, and 3 talking of its beauty in a way that seemed . almost profane to us, but which' the church '. authorities allowed and sanctioned; and for \ which they accepted fees! The; second 3 church visited was the one in which the , blood of St. Januarius is contained, which, is j said to uncongeal (if I may coin ; a word) |-, once a year! Thence to the . 1 ' " NAPLES MUSEUM, ' which is located in an old palace, and which ' is among the finest in the world. It is especially remarkable for its sculpture, some ' of the finest examples of which have been ' brought from'Herculaneum, Pompeii, and 3 Rome. One of the noblest specimens is the i group which represents Antiope interyeni ing in favour of her rival, Dirce, whom.her 1 sons are about to bind to the horns of a. wild l " bull. This group was sculptured from a '- single block of marble in the third century J; 8.C., and was restored by Michael Angelo. " Some of the bronze statuary here is qppeci- ' ally fine. The■ ancients seem to have had. • secrets in the art of bronze casting which 1 the world has since lost. The plastic mould. !" was more responsive to the artist's' genius than the slow process of chiselling in marble, 1 hence the' marvellous result.; From the 5 Museum we drive to the . . ,*,- ■ KING OF ITALY'S PALACE, where; a great surprise awaited us. The 1, King only resides here occasionally.: red we > i were not prepared for such a sight-../' Th<?' '; marble';staircase/ by which it is entered is said to; be unrivalled. Then we passed , through room after room ablaze with gold ' and tapestry,'where the painter, the decora'- • tor, and the upholsterer appear to have com- • bined with one another to produce a charmi ing effect. Every room was different in tone ) and colour, yet each was exquisitely liars' monious. All the party with me agreed that i they had seen nothing like it. My, readers • will now be prepared to receive my sum- • ming/up: of Naples. It is a striking and ■• shocking contrast between- art, science, < wealth, and squalor, dirt, and poverty the > most abject and hopeless. We drove 14 , miles to Pompeii, along one continuous , street, 10 miles of which was one long and ; unbroken scene of poverty and dirt. Many >/ of the houses were large,' but were swarming ' from cellar to garret with tenement rooms. 1 Such piteous exhibitions we saw, of a family / wash being hung out to dry— few poor yellow. rags ! Such swarms of "ill-clad and ill- j fed old people, with pinched, yellow faces and tottering footsteps. Such thousands of dirty little mites of children. Such sleek, fat priests, and so gorgeous a Royal palace. I. did not wonder that .there is Anarchy in Italy. For Anarchy in such conditions is but a synonym for despair. If religion and Government can together, show no better 1 result than . this who can wonder at the 1 Anarchist's cry, " Let both perish !" During; I the next four days we steamer through; the Straits of Messina, along the Mediterranean, . past the mouth of the Nile, and quietly anchored at PORT SAID, • a place of which I shall never be able to 1 think, without laughing. It is a town of i some importance, on the junction of the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean. The 35,000 people who live there are made up of a dozen races or more, including Egyptians,. Arabs, Italians, French, English, Soudanese, etc., j etc. The steamers coal here, and the Orizaba had scarcely-stopped before coal barges were alongside, -planks fixed from barge to steamer, and scores of natives, clad in blue tunics and nothing, were running up and down these planks, with baskets of coal on the back of their necks, to some weird song, of their own composing. Then there came, as if out of the sea, the usual swarm of traffickers in cigarettes, jewellery, lace_, and . fancy goods. This deck bartering, which is good fun in its way, did not last long. The passengers were rowed ashore at 3d per head. Then the babel began in good earnest. The main street of Port Said has some good shops, but every shop has touts in the street, whose business is to badger the visitors. They coaxed and pleaded and argued, and followed as if their dear lives depended on our buying from them. The shoeblacks were especially diligent. Some tried to begin on my boots as I walked, and a dozen times in one street I was politely told how dirty they were! There were touts too with indecent things for sale,/: and indecent proposals to offermere lads whose brown faces never knew a blush. One/trick they have.is to call you by namenot your own,, but that of some distinguished visitor whose name they may recollect and be able to. pro-" .nounce. "That, they think, will fetch us if nothing else will! Coaling over we began our journey down the canal, the 80 miles being covered in 16 hours. This was a delightful little change, and many of us wished the canal were longer/The canal is about 150 ft wide, and is cub through a desert that is as brown and bare as a brickfield, but the water was perfectly smooth, we were hardly conscious of motion, and the experience .of being on a great liner, yet surrounded by land, was decidedly novel. The next morning we glided out of the canal into the Red . Sea, and were close to Suez. It was just a week from Marseilles, but what an interesting week it has been! THE RED SEA, which is usually so much dreaded by travellers, did not use us ill. We were in it four days, and * the heat i was nob more than we often; get in Australia at the same time of the year. / On our right was Egypt, on the % left the Peninsula of Sinai. ■'We were close to the springs of history; and religion. / A sailor lad, who was recounting this trip to / his mother, told her of flying fish. •/ She / was shocked at what she : regarded as un- / truth. "Nay, lad, fishes do not fly: God made them to swim under the water." "Then, mother," he added, "we fished up one'of Pharaoh's chariot wheels!" "Now ; < thou the truth." she. said. /Well, we < saw the flying; fish, but not the chariot; ! •wheels, and there is nothing to; show where :j the children of Israel- crossed, but the old J Bible story .was; in ■ our minds, and on our. . tongues. From the Straits of Babel Mandeb ( to Colombo was our next run of six days. ; :■■;

• As we crossed the line we had two or thr( ': days of close, muggy weather; in: which ■was hardly possible to do anything but slee and yawn. Father Neptune came on boarc and we had some good fun. The young Te lews "who were crossing the line for the fire time agreed to be ducked, but they had to b caught first, and that was the merriest par of the business. I will not attempt any di {{ scription of Colombo. {On the whole {it wc a disappointments The unblushing greed am extortion of the sellers of, curios, jewellery etc., made a painful impression. They chea 1 and lie, and are not ashamed. The street t were lined: with such crowds of beggar : that we had almost'; to" fight our wa] / - through. '". You are- my grandfather, you nr [ mamma," my wife arid I were told scores o ■■ times. in a few,hours, with extended palms r We did not feel at all flattered! Close t-< ; the hotel at Mount Layinia, on.the pretties . site in Ceylon, the Boer prisoners are en camped.: They live in .a large barracks situated in a field in which there was amp! ■ ■ space for recreation, close by the sea. Witl i their soft slouched wide-a-walces, and thei , loose-fitting clothes, they were {exactly liki ; the pictures with which everybody is fa i miliar. .■: They can, have little; to complaii . of, for a lovelier prison I never saw. Tei days more and our feet touched Australia] >' soil again, after seven months of almost con I .s'tant travel. This voyage, like. all others . has been delightful. Our steamer is over L • crowded, but with most interesting people , Half the passengers are colonists {returning ; ' home, and the rest are { English folk on ; visit to the colonies, but among all there : is a spirit of good fellowship. / Early in the ; voyage a Sports Committee was elected "am , provided with funds,: and. they' have takei care that the time shall pass merrily. ;] , cannot think of any kind of game that ha; not been played, with now and then a bal or. dance thrown in. I have not heard on< bad word on the ship, or seen anybody mucl , the worse for liquor. Religious services ; weekday and Sunday, havQr > been well at ; tended, with singing that most churches , would be glad to equal if they could. The best is reserved for the last, and that is "Home, Sweet, Sweet Home