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.
160We 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.
When we arrived within the iron enclosure of the Capitaneria we found that the first thing to demand attention was of course the baggage. It was already getting hot, and the large space of open, unsheltered dust in front of the Capitaneria was strewn with luggage of all shapes and sizes. There were huge wooden chests, bundles of bedclothes and blankets, casks of wine, kegs of olives, and cheese and butter, and quantities of small bags like my own. All such were already tumbling to pieces, being but cloth and paper pasted over frail wooden frames, and made on purpose to be sold to emigrants at ten times their value. 161Men went about selling grass ropes with which to tie them up.
First of all we had to get the baggage together and separate the hand baggage from the hold baggage; then the latter must all be opened up before the American consular agent and inspected, numbered, and listed; next inspected by the port health authorities; then received and receipted for by the company’s agents; and what with wild efforts of the emigrants to go backward through the process, to get shut trunks that had been opened and shaken up in inspection, and to get through before the steamer should leave, it was a scene to wring a man’s soul. If any of our party had any trouble, they came to Antonio or to me with it. Antonio went about holding his head as if he was afraid it would burst, and all the emigrants about us kept an eye on the big ship; not due to sail for hours yet, as if they were afraid to see it start off, like a train, at any moment.
This section of the toil and turmoil being over at last, we found that we had to carry our encumbrances to the south side of the Capitaneria and embark on a small steamer which would take us over to the fumigating-station, half a mile across the harbor, on the breakwater. It was an hour before we were properly assembled at this embarkation point, and the women were already almost succumbing to the dust and heat.
The little steamers were not much more than barges with donkey-engine power in them, and emigrants and baggage were piled in till it seemed they would swamp the craft. The men in charge of the boats knocked the emigrants about in a shameful fashion, without regard to their being men, women, or children, and 162the fear of “getting into trouble” caused the emigrants to take it all without resentment.
I observed many emigrants who had come to the point for embarkation on these little steamers, taking their baggage back without going to the fumigating-station, and a little careful watching showed me that certain furtive Neapolitans were directing them. The little groups paused a moment just outside the door of the police station in the south side of the Capitaneria and then hurried on around to the north side with the baggage.
I purposely put myself in the way of one of the sneaking Neapolitans and asked some question concerning the baggage.
“You do not need to go over there for fumigation and inspection if you do not want to,” he said.
“Is that so? How can we avoid it?”
“I know some men who will put on the labels that they put on over there, and no one will know you have not been there.”
I thought best to call Antonio to engineer the deal by which I hoped to trap this gang, which I could see must be counterfeiting official seals. He went aside with the Neapolitan, and soon turned away shaking his head. I called to him and asked what was the trouble. He said the Neapolitan wanted fifty lire for our eleven pieces of hand baggage. The other had already gone. I told Antonio to offer him twenty and I would pay it. Antonio offered fifteen and the Neapolitan accepted.
At the Doorway of the Capitaneria—Author’s Party on the Quay
Soon a man I had not seen before appeared and beckoned to us, and we toiled with our loads over to the south side of the Capitaneria, set our baggage down in a row against the building, and in an instant a cordon 163of guards, four in number, was stationed about us. They came out of the crowd like summoned spirits. No words passed. A fifth man appeared, and with lightning-like rapidity affixed to the baggage, by lifting up the tacked ends of straps, or prying open the tiny lead billets themselves, little metal seals impressed with the seal of the Italian government. It was the work of but a few seconds, interrupted once by the appearance of a pompous uniformed police officer who walked right by the baggage without noticing anything unusual in progress. The guards had given a quick signal as he appeared, and the groups seemed most ordinary. A sixth man appeared with a paste-brush and some little red labels. With one movement only he pasted each piece of baggage, and a seventh man, following him, affixed some large yellow labels bearing the United States consular seal. The eighth man was the one I had first seen; he appeared to be the capo or chief of the gang.
Meanwhile I had made careful mental notes of the eight men. I was determined to get some or all of them into the proper hands. As soon as they were through they all hurried away, mingling with the crowd without waiting for their pay. That seemed odd.
We carried our baggage around to the other side of the Capitaneria, and there stood the eighth man, really the best dressed of the lot, and signed to us to put our baggage inside a gate where two policemen were on guard, without going to a stand where men in the service of the United States consular service were pasting on genuine yellow labels on such baggage as had been over to the fumigating-station.
As we passed our baggage through the gate a boy 164marked each piece with a number, gave us a check, and it was all piled in rows on the ground, inside the fence, under police guard.
Straightening up with a sigh of relief at having passed the danger line so far as the fraudulent baggage was concerned, and free from our encumbrances for a while at least, I found the eighth man at my elbow. He said we must now go and be vaccinated. This was something I did not care about, nor did my wife. We each needed both arms in good condition for some time to come, but as I looked at my health ticket I saw there was a space on the back where there must be the vaccination stamp.
“For a lire I will tell you how to keep from getting a sore arm,” said the thief beside me. I gave him the lire.
“When the doctor vaccinates you, rub your shirt sleeve down over the two scratched places quickly; then suck them. He will not stop you.”
In the middle of the open rough lot, very similar to half-ploughed ground, which lay out beyond the Capitaneria fence, stood a small building with a big door. Crowds of emigrants were struggling around it. Venders of water-ice, lemons, fruit, etc., were in the midst of the crowd, holding their stands with one hand to keep them from being knocked over while they dealt out wares, made change, and talked with the other.
When we had fought our way inside at last, the crowd that was let in with us took seats all around the room in a row. Three doctors sat on a raised dais at one side. One did the vaccinating, the others the clerical end of the work. I believe they took turns. The moment we entered, the vaccinating doctor 165caught sight of my wife, and, advancing politely, addressed her in German............