Great Cities Through Travelers' Eyes Read online

  The place is inexhaustible in street amusements. I never tire of wandering about it, but find something to amuse me at every turn. In one quarter, the population appear literally to live in the open air, and we have driven through a street in which cooking, eating, wrangling, dancing, singing, praying, and all other occupations, were going on at the same moment. I believe I mentioned this in the first visit, but I had not then fallen on the real scene of out-door fun. The horses could not move off a walk, as we went through this street; and their heads, suddenly thrust into the centre of a ménage, appeared to produce no more derangement than a puff from a smoky chimney in one of our own kitchens.

  But the Mole is the spot I most frequent. Besides the charm of the port, which to me is inexhaustible, small as the place is, we have all sorts of buffoons there. One recites poetry, another relates stories, a third gives us Punch and Judy, who, in this country, bear the more musical names of Polichinello and Giulietta, or some other female name equally sonorous. The shipping is not very numerous, though it has much of the quaintness and beauty of the Mediterranean rig.…

  You will smile at my old passion for fine skies and landscape scenery, but I have climbed to the castle of St Elmo a dozen times within the last month to see the effect of the sunset. Just as the day disappears, a soft rosy tint illumines the base of Vesuvius, and all the crowded objects of the coast, throwing a glow on the broad Campagna that enables one almost to fancy it another Eden. While these beautiful transitions are to be seen on the earth, the heavens reflect them, as the sun. Of the hues of the clouds at such moments, it is impossible to speak clearly, for they appear supernatural. At one time the whole concave is an arch of pearl; and this perhaps is succeeded by a blush as soft and as mottled as that of youth; and then a hundred hues become so blended, that it is scarcely possible to name or to enumerate them. There is no gorgeousness, no dazzling of the eye in all this, but a polished softness that wins as much as it delights the beholder. Certainly, I have never seen sunsets to compare with these, on shore, before this visit to Naples; though at sea, in low latitudes, they are more frequent, I allow.

  1854 T.Q. (SAMUEL YOUNG)

  American banker Young, who wrote under the name T.Q. (see page 112), was unimpressed with much of what he found in Naples, being disappointed by the Carnival and unable to find the licentiousness he had expected.

  January Naples is beautifully situated, partly on a hill and principally on the level space at its foot, extending to the edge of the Bay. To the left is Vesuvius, with its two heads usually in the clouds, which seem to have great affection for the crater and linger there when the rest of the sky is blue. The extinct crater, or the mountain where it is, is pointed at the top; then there is a small valley, and the round head of the present burning mountain rises higher in the air. When the wind is favorable a thin white smoke is seen hanging around it, changing its form momently.… From the rear of Vesuvius, there stretches a chain of hills along the shore of the Bay, for about twenty miles out to the ocean, where they seem to terminate abruptly. Two or three villages are scattered along them, and at their extremity by the sea stands Sorento [sic]. From the farthest point visible you bring your eye along the horizon to your right hand, ten miles, and you see the island of Capri rising high out of the water.… Along the face of the hills to the right, runs a handsome road, the fashionable drive of the city. From it you look down upon white villas and gardens, and get a fine view of Vesuvius, the city and the Bay.…

  Naples is said to contain three hundred and sixty thousand inhabitants. It does not look thus large; but I presume the poor people lie six in a bed. These Italian cities must be much crowded, for you see hardly any country residences in passing through the land. The streets are well paved. The houses mostly of a pale yellow, or white, five stories high, with green blinds; and often with balconies before every window. In these balconies the ladies may sit with their novels or needle work, looking quite unconscious all the time; yet the Toleda (Toledo Street) is the Broadway of Naples. The crowds on the sidewalks here are so great, that it is often difficult to make your way. The shops look quite stylish, much after the French fashion. The tailors make great display, as do the jewellers, confectioners, &c. A handsome silk hat, to all appearance as good as the French hat, can be bought for one dollar twenty-five cents. And kid gloves for fifteen cents a pair. I have seen some well-looking boots displayed for sale but did not ask the price. How these articles will wear, I cannot say. At the doors of the bread shops you see bread hanging on nails and in all kinds of shapes; like hearts, krullers, small loaves ornamented, or in rings. The flower stands exhibit fine roses, great clusters of them half blown and each as big as a hen’s eggs. Fresh grown peas can now be had of the vegetable merchants. Good plums, a little shrivelled from the manner in which they are kept, are plentiful. Oranges are, of course, a drug. A small Sicily or Malta orange, with a thin skin is the best. Many travelling pedlars go about the streets, with their wares upon their heads; and their cries make the air resound. This, added to the jingling bells worn by the flocks of goats continually being driven into the city to be milked, or out to pasture, makes Naples full of sound. The street musicians also, with horn, violin, guitar, &c., dancing as they play; also Punch and Judy, who were created in this region, squeaking in the streets, with multitudes of carts, carriages, &c., make Naples a noisy town….

  I had heard much of the lazzarone [beggars] of Naples, but I can find no class answering the description given of them in books. The fishermen with their red woolen caps, hanging in bags by the side of their heads, and the younger of them with bare feet, answer nearest to my notion of the lazzaroni.… Beggars are as plentiful here as at Pisa; and that is saying enough. Priests are not so frequently seen here as at Rome; but soldiers are more visible.…

  The Carnival began on the 17th January, but it has amounted to but little thus far. A few fellows, dressed grotesquely, stop before the hotels, singing, playing and dancing, until some coppers are thrown to them; but such performances are nearly always to be seen. The ‘nobility’ have given a series of balls; and the King one or two on Sunday evenings; but all this does not make such a Carnival as you read or hear of. Are all travellers liars, or are they not? is an open question for debating societies. All I can say with regard to this common propensity is, that if I fall into the habit, it must be while entirely unconscious of it.

  The visible wickedness of Naples, I do not see much of, even with spectacles. We have received too many of our accounts of continental licentiousness from English books and newspapers. If I had stopped a moment for reflection, I should have decided, that as the English have published so many wilful falsehoods about America and the Americans, they must have treated in like manner other countries not under their control. Hereafter I shall receive all English accounts of foreign countries with much distrust.

  1943 NORMAN LEWIS

  British novelist Lewis (1908–2003) arrived in Naples, newly liberated from German control by the Allies, in October 1943, and his diary of his work as an Intelligence Officer over the next twelve months catalogued the devastation, starvation and suffering of a society affected by years of war.

  25 October It is astonishing to witness the struggles of this city so shattered, so starved, so deprived of all those things that justify a city’s existence, to adapt itself to a collapse into conditions which must resemble life in the Dark Ages. People camp out like Bedouins in deserts of bricks. There is little food, little water, no salt, no soap. A lot of Neapolitans have lost their possessions, including most of their clothing, in the bombings, and I have seen some strange combinations of garments in the streets, including a man in an old dinner jacket, knickerbockers and army boots, and several women in lacy confections that might have been made up from curtains. There are no cars but carts by the hundred, and a few antique coaches such as barouches and phaetons drawn by lean horses. Today in Posilippo [sic] I stopped to watch the methodical dismemberment of a stranded German half-track by a number o
f youths who were streaming away from it like leaf-cutter ants, carrying pieces of metal of all shapes and sizes. Fifty yards away a well-dressed lady with a feather in her hat squatted to milk a goat. At the water’s edge below, two fishermen had roped together several doors salvaged from the ruins, piled their gear on these and were about to go fishing. Inexplicably no boats are allowed out, but nothing is said in the proclamation about rafts. Everyone improvises and adapts.

  Tonight I dined for the first time in a civilian house at the invitation of a Signora Gentile recently released by a member of the section from the Filangieri gaol, where with a number of other women she had been imprisoned by the partisans on vague charges of collaboration. Here the mood was one of escapism, even of nostalgic frivolity. Our friends had made a huge effort to cast out of mind the unpleasantness of the immediate past. Several beautiful women were present – one in a blouse made from a Union Jack; all the old-style airs and graces banished by Mussolini were back again.…

  We ate wurst, sipped schnapps, drank wine from glasses of the right shape and colour, somebody strummed a mandolin, and we talked about Naples and its traditions – the city that had ignored and finally overcome all its conquerors, dedicated entirely and everlastingly to the sweet things of life. Other wars were mentioned in passing, but this one was not. Neither were politics, Mussolini, food shortages or the rumoured outbreak of typhus.

  NEW YORK CITY

  Founded by the Dutch as New Amsterdam in 1626, the young colony was taken by the English in 1664 and renamed New York. During the American War of Independence, New York was a British stronghold, but the British evacuation in 1783 marked the end of the war. New York, on Manhattan Island, became the first capital of the United States (1785–90).

  In the 19th and early 20th centuries New York became the prime focus for immigration from Europe, the arrival marked by the Statue of Liberty (a gift from the French government in 1889). Skyscrapers, first seen in the 1890s, came to mark the Manhattan skyline, an image instantly recognizable across the world from countless movies since the 1930s.

  1679 JASPER DANCKAERTS AND PETER SLUYTER

  Fifteen years after the English takeover of New York, Jasper Danckaerts (1639–1702/04) and Peter Sluyter (1645–1722), envoys of a Dutch religious sect seeking a new home, encountered a flourishing but rough colonial society. They succeeded in founding their colony, but it failed after forty years.

  24 September In church we found truly a wild worldly world. I say wild, not only because the people are wild, as they call it in Europe, but because most of the people partake of the nature of the country, that is, peculiar to the land where they live. We heard a minister preach, who had come from Fort Orange [Albany], an old man named Domine Schaats, of Amsterdam. We could only imagine that he had been drinking a little this morning. His text was, Come unto me all ye, etc., but he was so rough that even the roughest and most godless of our sailors were astonished.

  The church being in the fort, we had an opportunity to look through the latter. It is not large; it has four points or batteries; it has no moat but is enclosed with a double row of palisades. It is built from the foundation with quarry stone; the parapet is of earth. It is well provided with cannon…all bearing the mark or arms of the Netherlanders. The garrison is small…. It has only one gate, on the land side, which opens upon a broad plain or street, called the Broadway or Beaverway.

  27 September We started at two o’clock for Long Island. We went on, up the hill, along open roads and a little wood, through the first village, called Breukelen [Brooklyn], which has a small, ugly little church in the middle of the road…. We came upon several plantations where Gerrit was acquainted with the people, who made us very welcome, sharing bountifully whatever they had.

  On our return, we went from the city, along the Broadway. On both sides lived negroes, mulattoes and whites. These negroes were formerly the slaves of the Dutch West India Company, but, the changes and conquests of the country have given them their freedom and they settled here, where they have enough land to live on. We left the Bouweri [Bowery] village and went through the woods to the village of New Harlem.

  11 October We embarked early and rowed to Staten Island, where we arrived about eight o’clock…. There are about a hundred families on the island: mostly Dutch and French, and a few English.…

  When we arrived at Gouanes, we heard voices in the huts of the Indians living there. They were drunk, raving, striking, shouting, jumping, fighting each other and foaming at the mouth like raging wild beasts. Others had fled with their wives and children to Simon’s house, where the drunken brutes followed, bawling in the house and outside. And this was caused by Christians selling liquor.… This subject is so painful and so abominable, that I will say no more for the present.

  1819 ADLARD WELBY

  Adlard Welby (1776–1861) was a wealthy British gentleman who visited America to improve relations between the two countries following the War of Independence and War of 1812. Although less than complimentary about New York, the city rose in his estimation when he compared it with Philadelphia, his next stop.

  The heat of the weather in the city is so oppressive to English constitutions, that we have established ourselves across the river, on the Jersey shore, at a very pleasant place called Hoboken; here we pay $7 per week each, for board and lodging, and have a quick and pleasant communication with New York by steam ferry-boats every hour during the day to and from it.

  On entering our present boarding house to inquire their terms, we encountered the first striking specimen of the effects of freedom without refinement; upon asking for the landlord, a young woman who was sweeping the floor slip-shod, desired us to walk into a room she pointed to; where, she said, we might wait for further orders!! We did as we were ordered, reflecting on this contrast to a good English inn where, upon the traveller’s arrival, from the Landlord down to ‘Boots’, all are immediately upon the alert ready and willing to attend to your wishes.…

  The Americans at New York have not made a favourable impression upon me: almost every face expresses the game of desperate speculation.… Business here, with the exception of a few respectable houses, is conducted on an apparently slovenly plan; clerks at their banks look like our tavern waiters in deshabillé, and the bankers themselves not in appearance so respectable as our clerks.

  The town is handsomely built, and several things constantly remind one that here the people rule, and their convenience and comfort are studied: the footways for example are in general twice as broad as ours, in some instances taking up at least as much of the street as that set apart for the carriages; and the hackney coaches are not only neat but elegant in our sense of the word, and both drivers and horses equally superior. In a late publication, it is observed that the goods in the stores are set out in a slovenly manner; my own observation is that their shops or stores are apparently as good, and the stock as well shewn as in many good houses in London: their coffee houses and dinner-rooms in the best lodging houses are even superbly fitted up, very much in the French style: the Tontine, the City and the Bank coffee houses are three of the first; and a person may now dine at any one of them for three dollars and a half per week, and fare sumptuously upon turtle, &c. every day; wine is but little drank, or any other liquor indeed, either at or immediately after dinner by Americans; the reason for this, as given to me by an American, seems good – ‘We consider dinner as a sufficient stimulus,’ says he ‘without adding wine or spirits to it.’

  1842 CHARLES DICKENS

  British novelist Charles Dickens (1812–1870) visited America in 1842 on a highly publicized tour of a continent unrestrained by the restrictive conventions of the Old World. He stayed in New York for three weeks, where he was highly feted. Here as elsewhere, he made a point of visiting penitentiaries, orphanages and asylums, as well as the more conventional sights.

  Was there ever such a sunny street as this Broadway! The pavement stones are polished with the tread of feet until they shine again; the
red bricks of the houses might be yet in the dry, hot kilns; and the roofs of those omnibuses look as though, if water were poured on them, they would hiss and smoke, and smell like half-quenched fires. No stint of omnibuses here! Half-a-dozen have gone by within as many minutes. Plenty of hackney cabs and coaches too; gigs, phaetons, large-wheeled tilburies and private carriages – rather of a clumsy make, and not very different from the public vehicles, but built for the heavy roads beyond the city pavement. Negro coachmen and white; in straw hats, black hats, white hats, glazed caps, fur caps; in coats of drab, black, brown, green, blue, nankeen, striped jean and linen; and there in that one instance (look while it passes, or it will be too late), in suits of livery. Some Southern republican that, who puts his blacks in uniform, and swells with Sultan pomp and power.…

  Heaven save the ladies, how they dress! We have seen more colours in these ten minutes, than we should have seen elsewhere, in as many days. What various parasols! what rainbow silks and satins! what pinking of thin stocking, and pinching of thin shoes, and fluttering of ribbons and silk tassels, and display of rich cloaks with gaudy hoods and linings!…

  This narrow thoroughfare, baking and blistering in the sun, is Wall Street: the Stock Exchange and Lombard Street of New York. Many a rapid fortune has been made in this street, and many a no less rapid ruin. Some of these very merchants whom you see hanging about here now, have locked up money in their strongboxes, like the man in the Arabian nights, and opening them again, have found but withered leaves. Below, here by the water side, where the bowsprits of ships stretch across the footway, and almost thrust themselves into the windows, lie the noble American vessels which have made their Packet Service the finest in the world. They have brought hither the foreigners who abound in all the streets: not, perhaps, that there are more here, than in other commercial cities; but elsewhere, they have particular haunts, and you must find them out; here, they pervade the town.…