Page:The life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton (IA b21778401).pdf/61

Rh 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.

The family left Naples in the spring of 1836. The usual mountain of baggage was packed in the enormous boxes of the period, and the Custom House officers never even opened them, relying, as they said—and did in those good old days—upon the word of an Englishman, that they contained nothing contraband. How different from the United Italy, where even the dressing-bag is rummaged to find a few cigars, or an ounce of coffee. The voyage was full of discomforts. My mother, after a campaign of two or three years, had been persuaded to part with her French maid Eulalie, an old and attached servant, who made our hours bitter, and our faces yellow. The steamer of the day was by no means a floating palace, especially the English coasting streamers, which infested the Mediterranean. The machinery was noisy and offensive. The cabins were dog-holes, with a pestiferous atmosphere, and the food consisted of greasy butter, bread which might be called dough, eggs with a perfume, rusty bacon, milkless tea coffee, that might be mistaken for each other, waxy potatoes, graveolent greens cuite à l'eau, stickjaw pudding, and cannibal haunches of meat, charred without, and blue within.