As in most other great towns Murray assumes the traveller to have a macabre interest in cemeteries. In Naples only the rich, he says, can afford to be buried in a church, the old cemetery of Naples being used for the dead of the public hospitals, ‘and for the poorest classes who cannot afford the expense of burial in the Campo Santo Nuovo or in the churches.’
The ground forms a parallelogram of upwards of 300 feet, surrounded on three sides by a lofty wall, and bounded on the forth side by an arcade. It contains 366 deep round pits, some of which are arranged under the arcade, but the greater part are in the area. The pits are covered with large stones; their number, of course, gives one for every day of the year and one over. One of them is opened every evening, and cleared out to make room for the dead of the day. A priest resides upon the spot, and towards evening the miscellaneous funeral takes place. By this time a large pile of bodies is generally accumulated. They are brought by their relatives or by the hospital servants, stripped of every particle of clothing upon the spot, and left to be disposed of at the appointed time, unattended, in most instances, by the person to whom they were bound in life by ties of kindred or feeling. The bodies are thrown into the pit, with as much unconcern as if they were the plague patients of Florence whom Boccaccio has described; quick lime is then thrown in, and the stone covering is replaced for another year. As many as forty bodies are frequently thus disposed of in a single evening. The pits when first opened are generally so full of carbonic acid gas that a light is extinguished at its mouth; and it is said that whenever they have been examined the day after a burial, the bodies have been overrun with rats and enormous cock-roaches, which clear the bones more expeditiously than the lime.
Perhaps there would be fewer dead to inter at such charnel houses if the hospitals were run better, Murray suggests, when mentioning the main hospital at Naples: ‘The extent of its resources are unknown, as its ample revenues are administered by one of the great officers of the court, who is practically irresponsible.’
One of the most painful spectacles for nineteenth-century British travellers was the treatment of animals, especially donkeys and dogs, who seem, on the whole, to have had a worse time than human beings. ‘The grossest brutality to animals used to be a Neapolitan characteristic,’ J. C. Hare says, adding that the local retort to ill-usage was: ‘So what? They aren’t Christians.’ For this attitude, Hare adds, the priest was chiefly responsible.
Macmillan’s guide at the turn of the century reports: ‘A local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has done a vast amount of good, though it has met with the most violent opposition from the very persons who are chiefly interested in its operations. The continual protest on the part of English travellers against acts of wanton cruelty has probably more effect upon the Neapolitan cabman than any number of police restrictions, the justice or reasonableness of which he is wholly incapable of understanding. The Society has done immense work in removing from the streets of Naples sights and sounds which were sickening to English eyes and ears. Collecting-boxes are to be found in all the best hotels.’
In 1853 the area of the Grotto del Cane, in the environs of the city, was a place for stray dogs to avoid. ‘This celebrated cave, which the books of our early childhood classed among the wonders of the world, is nothing more than a small aperture, resembling a cellar, at the base of a rocky hill. The cavern, known to Pliny, is continually exhaling from its sides and floor volumes of steam mixed with carbonic acid gas … Cluverius says that the grotto was once used as a place of execution for Turkish captives, who were shut up within its walls and left to die of suffocation, a merciful fate compared with the lingering tortures which the Mohametan pirates of the same period inflicted on their Christian captives. It is said that Don Pedro de Toledo tried the same experiment upon two galley slaves, with fatal results. Addison, on his visit to the cavern, made a series of very interesting experiments which anticipated all those performed by subsequent observers. He found that a viper was nine minutes in dying on the first trial, and ten minutes on the second, this increased vitality being attributable, in his opinion, to the large stock of air which it had inhaled after the first trial. He found that the dog was not longer in expiring on the first experiment than on the second. It has frequently been asserted that the dog, upon which this experiment is usually performed for the amusement of travellers, is so accustomed to “die” that he becomes indifferent to his fate. We disbelieve this statement altogether, and on the simple ground that we have never seen any dog in perfect health who has long been the subject of the exhibition. The effects of the gas, moreover, are seen quite as well, if not better, in a torch, a lighted candle, or a pistol.’
Augustus Hare says in 1911, ‘Extortionate wretches generally swarm in the neighbourhood with animals which they offer to “die” for the amusement of visitors; a dog is the favourite victim.’ Baedeker, a few years later, tells us: ‘Dogs are no longer provided for the exhibition of this cruel experiment, but the curiosity of the traveller is sufficiently gratified by observing that a light is immediately extinguished when brought in contact with the vapour.’
The final comment on this matter will be taken from Macmillan’s guidebook of 1905: ‘The fumes being most powerful close to the floor, a dog or other animal is soon overcome by breathing the fumes, and a wretched dog is kept in readiness for the cruel and vulgar experiment, on the consent of the inhuman visitor’ — thus putting the blame where it really lay.
After seeing the churches and picture galleries of Naples, and its street life, the traveller may now visit the asterisked environs, the first of which must surely be the ascent of Vesuvius, ‘for many centuries one of the most active volcanoes in the world’. The mid-Victorian Murray gives a blow by blow description of the fifty-three eruptions up to that time, in the last of which: ‘A young Polish officer was struck by a mass of large size, which caused a compound fracture of the thigh, lacerating the artery in such a manner that he bled to death on the spot. An American officer was struck on the arm by a stone, which stripped the flesh down to the elbow, producing alarming haemorrhage, which endangered his life for many days.’ Perhaps for the rest of his time on earth he considered that Goethe had much to answer for, in saying that Vesuvius was ‘a peak of hell, rising out of Paradise’, thus tempting all tourists to climb it.
The ascent was usually made from Resina, reached by railway or private carriage, a place ‘infested by self-called guides, pretended mineral dealers, and padroni of horses and mules, who are most importunate in their offers of services, which are too frequently both dear and worthless’.
A kind of sedan chair with twelve bearers ‘is required for delicate ladies and invalids. A great coat or cloak, and a warm neckerchief, to put on as soon as the ascent is made, a strong walking stick, and stout boots, may be mentioned as the desiderata of the excursion.’ During an eruption, hundreds of people assemble to witness the sight: ‘When a stream of lava is rolling slowly down the mountain, the kettle is boiled on its surface and the eggs are cooked in its crevices. Coins also are usually dropped into the lava, which is then detached from the mass and preserved as a reminiscence.
‘The ascent over the loose scoriae generally occupies about an hour, varying of course with the state of the cone. At times it is necessary for the guides to assist the traveller, which they do by strapping a long leathern belt around his waist, and pulling him up the steep incline by main force.’