Putting aside even the objectionable habits of so many of its citizens, it cannot be said that the town itself of Pozzuoli to-day is particularly attractive, although its situation on the Bay of Baiae is charming and its quays are full of picturesque life and movement. Lines of irregular yellow-washed buildings, with faded green _persiani_ and balconies draped with the domestic washing, with here and there a domed rococo church, look down upon the clear tideless waters that gently lap the ancient stone-work of the Mole, whilst a mixed crowd of fishermen with bare bronzed limbs, of chattering women with gay handkerchiefs tied over their thick black hair, and of blue uniformed dapper little customs officers,—_lupi marini_ (wolves of the sea) as the poor people facetiously term these revenue officials of the coast—loiter in the sunlight amidst the piles of tawny fishing nets or the pyramids of golden oranges. From the quay we make our way to the Largo del Municipio, a typical square of a provincial town in the South, enclosed by shabby houses and adorned by a couple of stunted date-palms and a battered marble fountain, around which numberless children and some slatternly women noisily converse or dispute. There is an old proverb in the South, that a good housewife has no need to know any thoroughfares save those leading to her church and her fountain, and as conversation cannot well be carried on in the former, it is the daily visits to the well that usually afford the required opportunity for exchange of gossip or for the picking of quarrels. Two statues decorate this unlovely but not uninteresting space; one is that of a Spanish bishop, Leon y Cardeñas, one of King Philip the Third’s viceroys, which serves as a reminder of the many vicissitudes this classic land has experienced in the course of history:—Phoenician, Greek, Carthaginian, Roman, Barbarian, Norman, German, French, Spanish conquerors have all left “footprints on the sands of Time” in the coveted land of the Siren, which all have possessed in turn but none have held in perpetuity. His Excellency the Bishop Cardeñas stands therefore in the open as a solid memento of the glory that once was Spain, when half Europe and all America owned the sway of the Catholic King. The second statue, though not a thing of beauty, has always had the attraction of an unsolved puzzle, for we cannot decide whether it proves a complete absence or an abundant superfluity of humour in the Puteolani of to-day. It is the figure of a Roman senator, vested in his flowing toga, and owning (as the ancient inscription informs us) the grandiose name of Quintus Flavius Mavortius Lollianus, whose marble trunk was one of the earliest archaeological “finds” made in the excavations at Pozzuoli some two hundred years ago. Since the statue lacked a head and was otherwise of no especial value as a work of art, the Viceroy of Naples very generously presented this object to the place of its discovery, whose citizens, doubtless thinking the appearance of the headless statue uncanny, popped a stray antique occiput (of which a goodly number, more or less mutilated, are constantly brought to light by the peasants) upon Lollianus’ vacant shoulders. Anything more comical and at the same time more repellent than this hybrid statue it would be impossible to imagine, yet Lollianus of the unknown head remains a favourite with the people of Pozzuoli. Leaving the Largo del Municipio, with its weird senator and its dusty palms, we ascend by a zigzag lane between tall featureless houses to the Cathedral of San Proculo, which occupies the site of a temple of Augustus, that once dominated the ancient city and harbour below. Within, the cathedral of Proculus, who was a companion of St Januarius and a fellow-martyr, is gaudy and painted, one of those dismally gorgeous ecclesiastical interiors that are such a disappointment to the antiquarian in Southern Italy. In opposition to the memorial of Spanish conquest in the square below, we find here an elaborate monument to a French viceroy, the Duke of Montpensier, who served for some time as Governor of Naples after Charles VIII.’s capture of the city. Except the tomb of the young musician Pergolese, who composed the original _Stabat Mater_ there is little else to see, and we gladly ascend the tower in order to gain a bird’s eye view of the town from a point of vantage whither noisy coachmen, troublesome beggars and impudent ragamuffins cannot pursue.