One had no more than put foot on the quay at Naples before the atmosphere
of fateful hesitation in which Italy had lived for eight months became
evident to the senses of the traveler. Naples was less strident, less
vocal than ever before. That mob of hungry Neapolitans, which usually
seizes violent hold of the stranger and his effects, was thin and
spiritless. Naples was almost quiet. The Santa Lucia was deserted; the
line of pretentious hotels with drawn shutters had the air of a summer
resort out of season. The war had cut off Italy's greatest source of ready
money--the idler. Naples was living to itself a subdued, zestless life.
Cook's was an empty inutility. The sunny slopes of Sorrento, where during
the last generation the German has established himself in all favorable
sites, were thick with signs of sale.

In other respects there were indications of prosperity--more building,
cleaner streets, better shops. In the dozen years since I had been there,
Italy had undoubtedly prospered, and even this beggar's paradise of sun
and tourists had bettered itself after the modern way. I saw abundant
signs of the new Italy of industrial expansion, which under German
tutelage had begun to manufacture, to own ships, and to exploit itself.
And there were also signs of war-time bloat--the immense cotton business.
Naples as well as Genoa was stuffed with American cotton, the quays piled
with the bales that could not be got into warehouses. It took a large
credulity to believe that all this cotton was to satisfy Italian wants.
Cotton, as everybody knew, was going across the Alps by the trainload.
Nevertheless, our ship, which had a goodly amount of the stuff, was held
at Gibraltar only a day until the English Government decided to accept
the guarantees of consul and Italian Ambassador that it was legitimately
destined for Italian factories--a straw indicating England's perplexity
in the cotton business, especially with a nation that might any day become
an ally! It would be wiser to let a little more cotton leak into Germany