So through this outskirt of the city the funeral train of Mas'aniello came from the Carmine and went back to that centre of the life and tragedy of Naples. We too will go there presently, and then will talk the more about Mas'aniello. But first we must walk through the ancient city, and that is now quite close at hand. I have traversed almost half the length of the Toledo--the ancient name comes more readily than the modern--passing by the little Largo della Carità, where in the shadow of the tramcars green bays hang around the tablet that protests against forgetfulness of Felice Cavallotti. I am in sight of the Piazza Dante, and a little more would show me the red walls of the museum, when I halt beneath the vast and heavy front of the Palazzo Maddaloni, and turning round into the shadow of the Strada Quercia, I see the fine courtyard and loggia of the palace, eloquent of pomps and ceremonies which find no match in the Naples of to-day. Some hundred and fifty yards beyond the palace the old line of the city walls crossed the street at right angles. There is not a sign of walls or towers now. The ancient quadrangle of streets and alleys, the old Greek city which held out so stoutly generation after generation when besieged by Lombard or Imperialist, lies open now to strangers of every nation. On entering its precinct one appears to have found a new world, albeit an unsavoury one. For here, in place of the irregular and curved vistas in which the builders of modern Naples have delighted, is a long narrow street of exceeding straightness, cleaving like an arrow-flight through the close-packed houses. Irresistibly it brings to mind the long straight streets of Pompeii, so far as a thoroughfare seething with crowded life can recall one which lies silent and open under the winds of heaven. It is a just comparison; for indeed Pompeii still retains the very aspect which Naples must have borne. In size, in manner of construction, in defences, the two towns were closely similar, and this long street which under several names pierces the ancient city from side to side, was one of the three Decuman ways which every visitor to the buried city traces out and follows. A little higher up the hill is the Decumanus Major, now called the Strada de' Tribunali, and still by far the most interesting street in Naples, while higher yet upon the slope the third of the Decuman streets runs parallel to the other two under the name of Strada Anticaglia, and in it stood the ancient theatre, some remnants of which still exist between the Vico di S. Paolo and the Vico de' Giganti. These three Decuman streets are the arteries of ancient Naples. In them, and in the countless alleys which unite them, are to be found almost all the relics of the mediæval city; and indeed a man wandering about beneath those unmodernised house-fronts, elbowing his way through crowds of ragged peasants and of burly priests, might well