His building enthusiasm had embellished the ancient districts with works similar to those that he erected years afterward, upon occupying the throne of Spain.
After admiring the Grecian statuary in the museum, and the excavated objects that revealed the intimate life of the ancients, Ulysses threaded the tortuous and often gloomy arteries of the popular districts.
There were streets clinging to the slopes forming landings flanked with narrow and very high houses.

Every vacant space had its balconies, and from every railing to its opposite were extended lines spread with clothes of different colors, hung out to dry.

Neapolitan fertility made these little alleys seethe with people.

Around the open-air kitchens there crowded patrons, eating, while standing, their boiled macaroni or bits of meat.
The hucksters were hawking their goods with melodious, song-like cries, and cords to which little baskets were fastened were lowered down to them from balconies.

The bargaining and purchases reached from the depth of the street gutters to the top of the seventh floor, but the flocks of goats climbed the winding steps with their customary agility in order to be milked at the various stair landings.
The wharves of the Marinela attracted the captain because of the local color of this Mediterranean port.