The Neapolitan frontier crossed, after two hours' travelling; and
the hungriest of soldiers and custom-house officers with difficulty
appeased; we enter, by a gateless portal, into the first Neapolitan
town--Fondi. Take note of Fondi, in the name of all that is
wretched and beggarly.
A filthy channel of mud and refuse meanders down the centre of the
miserable streets, fed by obscene rivulets that trickle from the
abject houses. There is not a door, a window, or a shutter; not a
roof, a wall, a post, or a pillar, in all Fondi, but is decayed,
and crazy, and rotting away. The wretched history of the town,
with all its sieges and pillages by Barbarossa and the rest, might
have been acted last year. How the gaunt dogs that sneak about the
miserable streets, come to be alive, and undevoured by the people,
is one of the enigmas of the world.
A hollow-cheeked and scowling people they are! All beggars; but
that's nothing. Look at them as they gather round. Some, are too
indolent to come down-stairs, or are too wisely mistrustful of the
stairs, perhaps, to venture: so stretch out their lean hands from
upper windows, and howl; others, come flocking about us, fighting
and jostling one another, and demanding, incessantly, charity for
the love of God, charity for the love of the Blessed Virgin,
charity for the love of all the Saints.
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