The wind drew through the pass between Vesuvius and Castel-a-mare like a pair of bellows, and the sea, at times, almost laid our little sparanaro on her side. The vessel, however, was admirably handled, and, by watching the sheet, which was eased off in the puffs, we wallowed across the opening, luffing up to our course handsomely, until we made the lee of the mountain. Here we literally found a calm, and were compelled to use the oars! We had no sooner swept by the base of the mountain, however, than we took the breeze again, stiff as ever, but without the disagreeable attendant of rough water. Notwithstanding the delay of the calm, we made the passage in a little more than two hours. We are in private lodgings here. Of course, you understand by private lodgings, not a dwelling that differs from a tavern, with a _table d’hote_, only in name, but an _apartment_, as it is termed, in which we have every thing, from the kitchen to the parlour, to ourselves. The American “boarding-house” does exist in Europe, certainly, but it is scarcely in favour. We are near the mole and the Toledo, and have been passing the month in doing Naples more effectually than we could do it in the first visit. 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, while all sorts of antics are cut by boys. The shipping is not very numerous, though it has much of the quaintness and beauty of the Mediterranean rig. The vessels of war lie behind the mole also, and they show, plain enough, that the fleet of Naples is no great matter. The ships of the line could scarcely cope with modern frigates; and one or two of the latter, though prettily moulded vessels enough, are not much heavier than large sloops of the present day.