I met several other persons as I neared the city, market people and venders of ices--but they took no note of me--in fact, I avoided them all as much as possible.

On reaching the suburbs I turned into the first street I saw that seemed likely to contain a few shops.

It was close and dark and foul-smelling, but I had not gone far down it when I came upon the sort of place I sought--a wretched tumble-down hovel, with a partly broken window, through which a shabby array of second-hand garments were to be dimly perceived, strung up for show on pieces of coarse twine.

It was one of those dirty dens where sailors, returning from long voyages, frequently go to dispose of the various trifles they have picked up in foreign countries, so that among the forlorn specimens of second-hand wearing apparel many quaint and curious objects were to be seen, such as shells, branches of rough coral, strings of beads, cups and dishes carved out of cocoa-nut, dried gourds, horns of animals, fans, stuffed parakeets, and old coins--while a grotesque wooden idol peered hideously forth from between the stretched-out portions of a pair of old nankeen trousers, as though surveying the miscellaneous collection in idiotic amazement.

An aged man sat smoking at the open door of this promising habitation--a true specimen of a Neapolitan grown old.