Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/463

 and alarms, and riots. Most of the famous murders in history have taken place in palaces. Not far from the king's town palace in Naples is an old palace now occupied by soldiers as a barracks. It is a dirty place, but we were taken to the upper rooms where are preserved relics of royalty nearly a thousand years old. These include a chapel, decorated by artists of great fame. Then we were taken down a winding stairway into a terrible place where dead bodies were displayed in coffins. The dead bodies in the coffins were those of princes, and cardinals, and all of them had died violent deaths. One cardinal had an expression of agony on his face which will haunt me for months; he had been smothered in the most inhuman way. The bodies we saw were dressed in the magnificent clothing they wore when they were murdered. This sight was seen in a noisome hole underground, and was so terrible that Adelaide almost cried when she begged me to take her out. We had a guide with us, and a warder from the castle, but neither of them could tell us much about the place, except that it is a relic of Spanish occupation in the eleventh and twelfth centuries In thinking of the magnificence of palaces and castles, always remember the terrible murders that have disgraced them. A king fills us common people with awe, but he always has a brother, an uncle, a cousin, or some other near relative who knows that he deserves death. I think I have longed for nearly everything else, but I never longed to be a king, nor would I care to live in a palace with twelve hundred servants, any one of whom would poison me for two dollars and promise of a postoffice On