CHAPTER XIII THE EMBARKATION PROCESS In the morning we were up early, and after a very indifferent breakfast got our hand luggage together and departed from the Albergo della Rosa. At the door we were beset by fruit-venders with their long barrows, and small tradesmen with all sorts of trifles that they convinced our people were indispensable on the voyage; and I really believe that between the lodging-house and the steamship-broker’s offices that portion of the party which lagged behind where I could not control them bought forty or fifty lire worth of stuff that was worse than useless, being merely a burden and a care. At the steamship-broker’s offices an enormous crowd was gathered. Two thirds of them had no real occasion to go there, but if one member of a party was not right in his papers, or imagined he was not, all the party went with him to avoid being separated. We had some baggage checks to see about. It seemed that there was not one hour of our journey from Gualtieri to our American destination which was not embittered by the mishaps of that baggage, and as I write, months after, some of it is still missing. I have had thoughts about it that were deeper than the greatest depths of profanity, and more far-reaching than the extent of the combined English and Italian languages in blasphemous reference. We passed down the Vico di Via Porta and along the Marina, a veritable tumult of sailing-day traffic. A highly picturesque _carreta_ loaded with emigrants and their friends on their way to the Capitaneria from their country home came jogging by and paused long enough to be kodaked. Near the railroad tracks we came upon a group that was both laughable and pathetic. It was one of the places of sudden and forced sale of household effects of emigrants. Some of the foolish people will bring, even from provinces more distant than the Campania, quantities of household goods, furniture, etc., and their hearts are almost broken when they find they cannot take it aboard. They have felt sure that there must be some little corner on such a big ship in which they can place a half-dozen two-hundred-years-old hand-made chairs, or a five-foot bureau, or so small a matter as a table large enough to accommodate a family of the usual Italian size. However, here was a pile of it, heaped up indiscriminately, and about and on it were beggars who had bargained to look after it, or owners who had decided to remain and guard their own.