Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/339

Rh appearance from Naples, looking pale and out of order. The state of things in Naples, according to his expression, was intolerable, terrible, and the air as if infected. And in the second place, by some secret magic power, which I begin to suspect belongs to this island.

The state of my poor countryman's health seemed to me dangerous. I therefore had my luggage taken up again from the boat, and the lovers set off alone. My best wishes go with them, especially with the unusually amiable young lady, who goes to meet her relatives in Rome, and to consider with them of her new engagement.

Mr. S. relates to me the state of things in Naples; that the heat is stifling; that dysentery has broken out, and that people keep themselves alive by drinking Pozzuoli water, the sulphurous ingredients of which are not distasteful to the Neapolitans, though abominable to foreigners. In the evening, the Chiaja Santa Lucia is crowded with people, who sit drinking glass after glass of this water, which is brought to Naples in large casks.

The day after the lovers departed, the air was refreshed here by a magnificent storm; such lightning and thunder, such tempests of wind and torrents of rain, such clouds and water-spouts, such darkness in the air—it was an incomparably grand spectacle. Vessels were driven on shore and wrecked; others got out to sea, even amidst the storm, and were thus probably saved from the same fate. After raging for some hours, the storm dispersed; the mountains again stood forth from sea and cloud; the sun made