JuliaKavanagh

Julia Kavanagh

A Summer and Winter in The Two Sicilies
Hurst& Blackett Pbs, London 1858

Vesuvius and Pompeii

THERE is no spot more attractive in all Italy than Pompeii. I Have heard Granada placed beyond the fairest scenes of what seemed to me an earthly paradise; the Roman ruins are said to be nothing to the Grecian temples, and become insignificant when compared to Thebes and Balbec ; but I never heard of a second Pompeii, of another city of the dead, buried for seventeen hundred years, and rising before the living, unroofed and dismantled, but still a city with streets, houses, tombs, temples, and all the records of a vanished people and a bygone civilization.

There is no place, perhaps, that has been oftener described and written about. Volumes, the result of studious and patient lives, have been devoted to it; travellers have visited it, and talked about it on their return; the Pompeian court in the Crystal Palace has made thousands familiar with the plan and economy of a Pompeian home, and fiction, mightier than learning and art, has told the story of its destruction, and deepened the gloom and horror of that mighty catastrophe.

It might seem that, after this, there is nothing to be said of Pompeii, but, as even after visiting twice this interesting place, I have read with pleasure and interest three different accounts of it, penned in different languages, by minds of wholly different stamp, I cannot help thinking that the readers, who have gone thus far with me, wild not mind going on still further.

To know Pompeii one must begin with Vesuvius, and the history of Vesuvius is long and tragic indeed. That purple mountain, with its ashy cone and verdant slopes, which slowly pours its sedate volumes of smoke across the azure of the sky, or sends up, in the calmness of summer days, a faint curling breath of tremulous vapour, timid and quiet enough for a cottage chimney, is the pitiless tyrant of these beautiful and fertile shores. When it seems most peaceful, when you think it most quiet, a tongue of flame seen in the darkness of the night, a sound as of thunder rolling in secret abysses, warn you that in a moment the fated time may come, that in a few hours all may be over.

Turner: Vesuvius in eruption

The earliest eruption on record is that of the twenty third of August of the year 79 of our era.

Three cities, Herculaneum, Pompeii and Stabiae, were buried in floods of lava, or covered by showers of stones and ashes, which raised a cloud, visible across the Mediterranean in Africa and Syria, and mighty enough to darken the day of Rome; thousands of the inhabitants perished, the aspect of a fertile country was changed to desolation and death, the very shores of the sea took other forms, and advanced or receded as the waves deserted their bed or invaded their land boundaries.
There is no historical mention of any eruption preceding this, but a silent and significant fact remains; the streets of the buried cities are paved with lava. Other cities perhaps had been destroyed on the sites where they rose. Other generations had perished, but time had passed, tradition had grown silent, and man had forgotten the tale. He had flagged his pavements with the lava of the old unremembered eruptions, and he had never thought that a burning flood would descend on his home, and, hardening into stone, bury him and his brethren in one vast grave.

The account given by Pliny the younger, of this catastrophe, in which his uncle, the celebrated naturalist, perished, is most interesting. It is contained in two of the letters which be addressed to Tacitus, and from which, for the benefit of such readers as may not have the original at hand, I shall extract freely, using the old-fashioned, but good translation, in which that agreeable author is most familiar to the English public. After a flow of stately and graceful speech, of compliment and truth, which the younger Pliny might write, and Cornelius Tacitus might receive; after impressive allusions to the catastrophe, which involved “a most beautiful country in ruins, and destroyed so many populous cities;” the nephew of the great naturalist thus relates the tragic death of his uncle.

“He was, at that time, with the fleet under his command, at Misenum. On the 23rd of August, about one in the afternoon, my mother desired him to observe a cloud, which appeared of a very unusual size and shape. He had just returned from taking the benefit of the sun, and, after bathing himself in cold water, and taking a slight repast, was retired to his study. He immediately arose, and went out upon an eminence, from whence he might more distinctly view this very uncommon appearance. It was not, at that distance, discernible from what mountain the cloud issued, but it was faund afterwards to ascend from Mount Vesuvius.

“I cannot give you a more exact description of its figure than by resembling it to that of a pine-tree, for it shot up a great height, in the form of a trunk, which extended itself, at the top, into a sort of branches, occasioned, I imagine, either by a sudden gust of air that impelled it, the force of which decreased as it advanced upwards, or the cloud itself, being pressed back again by its own weight, expanded in this manner.

It appeared sometimes bright, and sometimes dark and spotted, as it was either more or less impregnated with earth and cinders. This extraordinary phenomenon excited my uncle's philosophical curiosity to take a nearer view of it. He ordered a light vessel to be got ready, and gave me the liberty, if I thought proper, to attend him. I rather chose to continue my studies, for, as it happened, he had given me an employment of that kind.

“As he was coming out of the house, be received a note from Rectina, the wife of Bassus, who was in the utmost alarm at the imminent danger which threatened her, for her villa being situated at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, there was no way to escape but by sea. She earnestly entreated him, therefore, to come to her assistance.

He accordingly change is first design, and what be began with a philosophical, he pursued with a heroical turn of mind. He ordered the galleys to put to sea, and went himself on board, with an. intention of assisting not only Rectina, but several others; for the villas stand extremely thick upon that beautiful coast.

When hastening to the place from whence others fled with the utmost terror, he steered his direct course to the point of danger, and with so much calmness and presence of mind, as to be able to make and dictate his observations upon the motion and figure of that dreadful scene. He was now so nigh the mountain that the cinders, which grew thicker and hotter the nearer he approached, fell into the ships, together with pumice-stones and black pieces of burning rock. They were likewise in danger not only of being aground by the sudden retreat of the sea, but also from, the vast fragments which rolled down from the mountain; and obstructed all the shore.

Here he stopped to consider whether he should return back again, to which the pilot advising him:
“ ‘Fortune,’ said he, ‘befriends the brave! Carry me to Pomponianus!’

“ Pomponianus was then at Stabiae (now Castellamare), separated by a gulf which the sea, after several insensible windings, forms upon that shore. He had already sent his baggage on board ; for though he was not, at that time, in actual danger, yet being within the view of it, and, indeed, extremely near, if it should in the least increase, he was determined to put to sea as soon as the wind should change. It was favourable, however, for carrying my uncle to Pomponianus, whom he found in the greatest consternation.

He embraced him with tenderness, encouraging and exhorting him to keep up his spirits; and the more to dissipate his fears, he ordered, with an air of unconcern, the baths to be got ready, when, after having bathed, he sat down to supper with great cheerfulness, or, at least (what is equally heroic), with all the appearance of it.

“ In the meanwhile, the eruption from Mount Vesuvius flamed out in several places, with much violence, which the darkness of the night contributed to render still more visible and dreadful. But my uncle, in order to soothe the apprehensions of his friend, assured him it was only the burning of the villages, which the country people had abandoned to the flames. After this he retired to rest, and it is most certain be was so little discomposed as to fall into a deep sleep, for, being pretty fat, and breathing hard, those who attended without actually beard-him snore.

The court which led to his apartment being now almost filled with stones and ashes, if be had continued there any time longer, it would have been impossible for him to have made his way out. It was .thought proper, therefore, to awaken him. He got up and went to Pomponianus and the rest of his company, who were not unconcerned enough to think of going to bed.

They consulted together whether it would be most prudent to trust to the houses, which now shook from side to side with frequent and violent concussions, or fly to the open fields, where the calcined stones and cinders, though light indeed, yet fell in large showers, and threatened destruction. In this distress, they resolved for the fields as the less dangerous situation of the two - a resolution which, while the rest of the company were hurried into it by their fears, my uncle embraced upon cool and deliberate consideration.

“They went out then, having pillows tied upon their heads with napkins; and this was their whole defence against the storm of stones that fell round them. Though it was now day everywhere else, with them it was darker than the most obscure night, excepting only what light proceeded from the fire and flames. They thought proper to go down farther upon the shore, to observe if they might safely put out to sea, but they found the waves still run extremely high and boisterous. There my uncle, having drunk a draught or two of cold water, threw himself down upon a cloth which was spread for him, when immediately the flames, and a strong smell of sulphur, which was the forerunner of them, dispersed the rest of the company, and obliged him to arise.

He raised himself up with the assistance of two of his servants, and instantly fell down dead, suffocated, as I conjecture, by some gross and noxious vapour, having always had weak lungs, and been frequently subjected to a difficulty of breathing. As soon as it was light again, which was not till the third day after this melancholy accident, his body was found entire, and without any marks of violence upon it, exactly in the same posture, that he fell, and looking more like a man asleep than dead.”

In this simple, yet graphic account, we see not merely the great naturalist meeting peril with the calmness of a man of science and the dignity of the Roman, but also the confirmation of some interesting facts and signs with which many subsequent catastrophes have made the world familiar To this day, the infallible token of an eruption is found in the cloud shaped like a pine-tree, which issues from Vesuvius. The description of the frightful scenes of this lamentable event; and which is found in the second letter to Tacitus, is equally impressive.

“My uncle having left us, I pursued the studies, which prevented my going with him, till it was time to bathe ; after which I went to supper, and from thence to bed, where my sleep was greatly broken and disturbed. There had been, for many days before, some shocks of an earthquake, which the less surprised us, as they are extremely frequent in Campania; but they were so particularly violent that night, that they not only shook everything about us, but seemed, indeed, to threaten total destruction.

My mother flew to my chamber, where she found me rising in order to awaken her. We went out into a small court belonging to the house, which separated the sea from the buildings. As I was, at that time, but eighteen years of age, I know not whether I should call my behaviour in this dangerous juncture courage or rashness, but I took up Livy, and amused myself with turning over that author, and even making extracts from him, as if all about me had been in full security.

“While we were in this posture, a friend of my uncle’s, who was just come from Spain to pay him. a visit, joined us, and observing me sitting by my mother with a book in my hand, greatly condemned her calmness, at the same time that he reproved me for my careless security; nevertheless I still went on with my author. Though it was now morning, the light was exceedingly faint and languid; the buildings all round us tottered, and though we stood upon open ground, yet, as the place was narrow and confined, there wais no remaining there without certain and great danger; we therefore resolved to quit the town.

The people followed us in the utmost consternation, and (as to a mind distracted with terror every suggestion seems more prudent than its own,) pressed in great crowds about us in our way out. Being got at a convenient distance from the houses, we stood still in the midst of a most dangerous and dreadful scene. The chariots, which we had ordered to be drawn out, were so agitated backwards and forwards, though in the open fields, that we could not keep them, steady, even by supporting them with large stones. The sea seemed to roll back upon itself, and to be driven from its banks by the convulsive motion of the earth; it is at least certain the shore was considerably enlarged, and several sea animals were left upon it.

On the other side, a black and dreadful cloud, bursting with an igneous serpentine vapour, darted a long train of fire, resembling flashes of lightning, but much larger. Upon this our Spanish friend, whom. I mentioned above, addressing himself to my mother and me. with greater warmth and earnestness:-
“If your brother and uncle,’ said be,’ is safe, he certainly wishes you may be so, too; but if he perished, it was his desire, no doubt, that you might both survive him ; why, therefore, do you delay your escape for a moment?’

We could never think of our own safety, we said, while we were uncertain of his.
Hereupon our friend left us, and withdrew from the danger with the utmost precipitation. Soon afterwards the cloud seemed to descend and cover the whole ocean; as, indeed, it entirely hid the island of Capreae and the promontory of Misenum. My mother strongly conjured me to make my escape at any rate, which, as I was young, I might easily do; as for herself, she said, her age and corpulency rendered all attempts of that sort impossible; however, she should. willingly meet death, if she could have the satisfaction of seeing that she was not the occasion of mine. But I absolutely refused to leave her, and, taking her by the hand, I led her on; she complied with great reluctance, and not without many reproaches to herself for retarding my flight.

The ashes now began to fall upon us, though in no great quantity. I turned my head and observed behind us a thick smoke, which came rolling after us like a torrent. I proposed, while we had yet any light, to turn out of the high road, lest we should be pressed to death in the dark by the crowd that followed us. We had scarce stepped out of the path, when a darkness overspread us, not like that of a cloudy night, or when there is no moon, but of a room when it is shut up and all the lights extinct.

Nothing then was to be heard but the shrieks of women, the screams of children, and the cries of men; some calling for their children, other for their parents, others for their husbands, and only distinguishing each other by their voices; one lamenting his own fate, another that of his family; some wishing to die from the very fear of dying, some lifting up their hands to the gods; but the greater part imagining that the last and eternal night was come, which was to destroy both the gods and the world together. Among these there were some who augmented the real terrors by imaginary ones, and made the frighted multitude falsely believe that Misenum was actually in flames.

At length a glimmering light appeared, which we imagined to be rather the forerunner of an approaching burst of flames, (as in truth it was), than the return of day; however, the fire fell at a distance from us; then, again, we were immersed in thick darkness, and a heavy shower of ashes rained upon us, which we were obliged every now and then to shake off, otherwise we should have been. crushed, and buried in the heap. I might boast, that during all this scene of horror, not a sigh or expression of fear escaped me, had not my support been founded in that miserable, though strong consolation, that all mankind were involved in the same calamity, and that I imagined I was perishing with the world itself.

"At last this dreadful darkness was dissipated by degrees, like a cloud of smoke; the real day returned; and even the sun appeared, though very faintly, and as when an eclipse is coming on. Every object that then presented itself to our eyes, (which were extremely weakened,) seemed changed, being covered with white ashes, as with a deep snow. We returned to Misenum, where we refreshed ourselves as well as we could, and passed an anxious night between hope and fear; though, indeed, with a much larger share of the latter; for the earthquake still continued, while several enthusiastic people ran up and down, heightening their own and their friends' calamities by terrible predictions."

There is nothing to add to this dreadful picture, to this lamentable drama, true of every eruption that has occurred since the year 79.
Pliny- has recorded the general calamity; but Pompeii was the greatest sufferer; for it perished utterly. At the time of its lamentable destruction, it was one -of the largest and most populous cities in all Campania.

It rose at the foot of Vesuvius, by the river Sarno, near the sea, in a fertile plain. It was, by its position, the commercial centre of Herculaneum, Stabiae and Nuceria. Oil and wine were its chief articles of trade. It was also a favourite residence with the Romans. Cicero loved his Pompeian home as much as his famous villa in Tusculum. The inhabitants, twenty-five thousand in all, were of mixed origin. Greeks, Etruscans, Egyptians even, and Romans met within its walls. About thirteen hundred perished; the rest escaped, but a plain replaced the city; the sea retreated a mile from the shore; port, shipping, commerce, people, and prosperity vanished for ever.

This dreadful eruption has had numerous successors during the last eighteen hundred years. Thirty-six great eruptions, involving serious calamities, are reckoned from that of the year 79 to the close of the last century.

The eruption which took place in 472 is said to have filled all Europe with ashes. This was the third great eruption; but the thirteenth, in 1631, surpassed its predecessors in violence. Strong shocks announced its coming; dark smoke poured out of the crater; the flank of the mountain opened, and seven floods of lava rushed out, destroying towns and villages on their way. Boiling water followed the burning flood; this new deluge spread over the whole country, inundating and destroying it; trees and houses were carried away everywhere. Five hundred persons were drowned at Torre del Greco, and three thousand in Naples.

The eruption of 1794 was almost as frightful. Sir William Hamilton beheld it, and has left us a lamentable account of this dreadful scene. His narrative resembles that of Pliny in its essential particulars. The boiling sea, the dull eclipse of day, the prayers and lamentations of the people, seem the very same of which Pliny wrote to Tacitus, seventeen centuries before.

With this terrible history of the volcano, we are all or less familiar by reading; it becomes better impressed on the mind when we see daily the author of so much mischief, and no doubt the impression is still stronger when we ascend Vesuvius. The timid generally conjure up a vision of burning lava, of showers of stones and ashes, and in short of all sorts of volcano perils as the inevitable consequences of the ascent.

I have been assured by the prudent, nothing, of the kind need be apprehended. Trust your guide and keep out of the way of the lava, and it will not seek you; do not go to the edge of the crater and it cannot possibly devour you. It is true that a few years ago, an imprudent young man, venturing too near, fell in, and perished miserably in the flames, but such accidents are rare, and are not the real dangers which Vesuvius offers; dangers which few warn you against, and which are more fatal than the more obvious peril. I allude to the exhaustion caused by the ascent, and to the liability of taking cold and fever in consequence.

Foreigners who visit this beautiful country are slow to understand that this mild and splendid climate has perils of its own. The heat of the sun is dangerous, the fresh sea breeze is dangerous, long walks or excursions in the heat of spring are dangerous to the careless and the imprudent. The natives expose themselves far less than foreigners, whose recklessness often costs them health or life. Two have died within the last fortnight, simply from imprudence.
A Belgian lady took cold, and bad a sore throat. She thought nothing of it, and went off to Sorrento. The keen sea and mountain air proved fatal to her. She became very ill, and had no sooner reached the hotel, than her husband telegraphed for the first doctor in Naples. He came at once, and found her dead.

The other me is as sad. An English lady and her family went up to Vesuvius. They took with them their French maid, to whom they were partial; and as the ascent, though not an extravagant affair, is expensive, they gave her, as they thought, a proof of kindness in allowing her to share their pleasure. But she was too weak for the fatigue, and for the contrast between the heat of the ascent and the sharpness of the keen sea-breeze. She came home fired and feverish. The next day she was ill. A doctor was called in; to the despair of the mistress, he declared that there was no hope for the poor girl. The first medical men of Naples were consulted, and they all agreed in the same sad verdict. Its truth was verified in a few days.

Such cases are common. Death, indeed, does not inevitably follow, but illness is frequent. Persons in delicate health, and who are not proof against the trying contrasts of heat and cold, must choose their time well before they go to Vesuvius. The weather not proving favourable to us, we delayed going until we could not go at all; and we thus missed one of the most interesting sights in Italy.

Such objections did not apply to Pompeii. The ruined city, indeed, is burned up , with the sun, and takes several hours to explore; but, with care and early hours, it is a pleasant excursion, and no more. A railroad now leads the traveller to Pompeii. You take your ticket at the office for the city of the Romans.
This railroad has the ugliness of most rail-roads, and it has not their redeeming quality of swiftness. Slowly you pass through villages, towns, and country, seeing everything under the common-place distorted aspect which seems the privilege of this mode of travelling. The time is gone when railroads could be attacked.

They have fought their way, and they will make it good so long as this civilisation lasts; but if they have brought us nearer to beauty - if they have saved us a world of trouble and money, may we not ask why they have introduced us to so much gratuitous ugliness?

The road was a quiet friend, which wound by the hedge, passed through the village, and climbed the mountain patient and slow like a pilgrim, and, though often tame enough, ever in harmony with all around him. The railroad is an enemy - he cuts through the hedge, through the rock, through the city, and delights in havoc and destruction. He shows you all the mean places of a town - the roofs, the yards, everything which the eye of a stranger should never see; he rides through fields like one who despises them; he pierces the mountain, but he leads you into no picturesque fastnesses - no citadels of rock, no haunts of the eagle open on your path. He takes you into a straight ravine-rigid, bare, and stifling-into a cold avenue of stone walls.

If he were on Mont Blanc, he would pass through it in the same heartless, engineering fashion. His only glimpse of poetry is the tunnel. There you feel him, because you, fear him. In that dark gap, with clouds of steam flying before you, and a rushing sound for ever pursuing you behind, you feel yourself at his mercy, and, in some measure, you are conquered.

There is nothing very striking or very beautiful in the carriage road from Castellamare to Naples, but it shows you the country, the villages, or small towns as they are. You bear away images from Torre dell' Annunziata, from Portici - glimpses of doorways, of villas and their gardens, of fields and their culture, remain to you. From the railroad, slow though it is, you see nothing that you care to remember, Vesuvius excepted. Near and threatening, the mountain lies clearly exposed to view. You certainly see it long and well, with its rugged lava flanks, too black for rock, too hard for earth.

The morning was bright and clear, the sun shone brilliantly. We saw, in all its horror, the trace of the last lava flood, which had changed, a year ago, so many fertile farms and homesteads into a mountain desert. Useless is the warning. The people will build here again - new homes shall arise where the old ones stood - another generation shall receive this inheritance of danger and death.

It has been so since the days when Pompeii perished. After the catastrophe so eloquently related by Pliny, those amongst the inhabitants of the buried city who had found time to escape, returned to the ashy plain which now covered their old home. They found the roofs of temples, the capitals of columns alone rising in the dreary field of death. The houses had all vanished. Nevertheless, they dug the earth in the spots where they conjectured their old homes to lie, and recovered much of their lost treasure. Undoubted traces of the earth having been stirred, and the houses searched, have been found in many parts of Pompeii.

But not satisfied with this, and clinging to the soil with the passionate love of the Campanian race, they built another Pompeii, inferior in size and beauty, near the site of the old. Thus, at least, antiquarians have explained the fact that the name of Pompeii survived for several centuries the destruction of the year 79, and only vanished from maps and history when another eruption, in the fifth century, laid this fatal plain finally waste.

But ruins of the old Pompeii long remained, and preserved its memory even unto within a few centuries ago. The Emperor Alexander Severus extracted valuable statues and precious marbles from its buildings and temples, and the poet Sannazar, in the sixteenth century, speaks of Pompeii - of its miserable fate, of its houses, temples, and theatres, which he saw. It is certain that the summit of the amphitheatre, which is above the level of the places still unexcavated, must always have been visible; and it a well known that, in the year 1572, the architect, Dominic Fontana, who was commissioned by the Prince of Sarno to build him an aqueduct, discovered a considerable portion of Pompeii. The traces of his aqueduct are said to exist still near the temple of Isis but I forgot inquiring for them, and cannot speak on my own authority.

Spite these tokens, the ruins that reared their heads above the surface of the soil were allowed to crumble into dust, and vineyards of the Lacryma Christi grew undisturbed above the buried city. Antiquity was then loved in its gods and goddesses, which peopled our poetry, and gave our literature a most heathenish character; but ancient ruins were better in a Claude Lorraine than in the reality. Pompeii slept undisturbed her sixteen centuries’ sleep. At length, the day of the wakening came.

A Prince of Elboeuf, of the house of Lorraine, had married a daughter of the Prince of Salsa. He had settled in the kingdom of Naples, and was building himself a villa near Portici. He bought every fragment of antiquity brought to him by the peasants; then he began excavating on his own account. His architect made a shrewd guess. A temple was discovered on the first attempt in 1720. But the Prince was not allowed to proceed, and matters remained in this state until Charles III ascended the throne.

This enlightened Prince at once took the matter in hand. He built the Palace of Portici, and filled it with the fragments and statues of the Prince of Elboeuf, whose villa and collection he had purchased. He caused the excavations to be continued until a city was found, as well as a temple. This was Herculaneum; but the hardness of the lava in which it was embedded, the expense of the undertaking, and, moreover, the discovery of Pompeii, which was found by peasants digging, in 1748, and which, being only covered over by ashes, was more easily got at, caused Herculaneum to be comparatively neglected for the sake of the more accessible city.

A hundred and ten years have passed since then, and half the city is not yet bare to the eye; but marvellous is the part we have; and we need but remember the Studij in Naples to know the treasures which it has yielded. The excavations were actively carried on by Murat, but they go on more quietly now. It is conjectured that if they progress at the present rate, the whole of the city will be revealed to us in something like five hundred years.

The railway now crossed the silent country we were approaching. The carriage relaxed its speed, then stopped; the guard opened the door, and laconically said:-
“Pompeii.”
We alighted, crossed the station, and found ourselves in an alley, bordered with flowers, surrounded by fields and overlooked by mountains. Trees, and a rise of ground, concealed the lost city. At length we reached the precincts of Pompeii; the Greek colony is now crown property, and under the care of royal keepers.

No one is allowed to wander alone in its streets and houses; too wise a precaution, when we remember the generally destructive propensities of travellers, to be quarrelled with.
A sedate, middle-aged man, perceiving our approach, came to meet us, and took possession of us with a quiet authority, that distinguished him at once from the bustling cicerone. Without speaking, and merely ascertaining that we were desirous of entering the city by the street of tombs, he preceded us slowly up the path.

The morning was beautiful; the sun shone brilliantly; the sky had not a cloud; the breeze was fresh and delightful; a few trees growing on the high banks that enclosed the path, shivered and bent in a way that spoke of pleasant coolness; the magnificent purple flowers of the mesembryanthemum covered the banks with their star-like blossoms; and green succulent stems and leaves, and on either side of us rose the tombs and funereal monuments which have given the street its name. The street itself ended in a broken arch, rising on the clear blue of the sky.

We were in the suburb of Augustus Felix; the ruined gate was that which the Pompeians called the gate of Herculaneum, because it led to that city; the road-like-street that passed beneath the arch was the Via Appia. We, had found it in the Roman Campagna, passing between ruined temples and decayed tombs, and it met us here again, still guarded by the dead, a fit entrance to a dead city.

Deep and powerful is the impression which the first aspect of Pompeii produces. It differs from every other ruin in Italy. The stern greatness of Poestum, the ancient majesty of the Forum, the graceful temple of the sibyl, are ages old; but this silent and solitary spot looks more forsaken than ancient or ruined; no contrasts between the present and the past remind us of buried generations, replaced by the men and women of another faith, and often, too, of another race. Pompeii is itself, - a Campanian city, devastated by an eruption, and left, it would seem, to decay in peace, unprofaned by man.

The keepers, who are obliged to escort travellers in Pompeii, also act as guides; their information is generally correct, though limited. Our guide showed exemplary truthfulness and modesty. When he could not answer our questions, he plainly replied:
“I do not know."
He now began his duties by showing us over the house of Arrius Diomedes, a freed-man. This house, the largest and best preserved of the houses in Pompeii, was the first discovered. It is supposed- to have belonged to Diomedes, on no stronger grounds than that the family tomb of the wealthy freedman rises near it. Whose it was, a consul’s or the son of a slave's dwelling, matters little now.

A handsome and elegant house it certainly must have been, built on the Roman model which the Pompeian court in Sydenham Palace has made familiar to all England. It was unusually large, for it had three storeys, only two of which remain, a wide court or garden, with columns around, and a basin in the centre; numerous apartments and conveniences, including even a cemetery for the slaves of this large household, hot and cold baths, that luxury of the Romans, and very genuine Roman bedrooms, that is to say, mere closets without windows.

It had, moreover, large underground cellars, where the Falernian wine cooled in the long and deep earthen amphora. We visited this subterranean world, memorable in the history of Pompeii. Our guide preceded us, bearing a torch with which he lit our steps down; when we were in the gloomy vault, he said, in his laconic way:-
“These jars are the amphorae, in which the wine was kept. Seventeen skeletons were found here. lf the signore will look, they can see the marks of the skeletons on the wall."

He raised his torch, to a man’s height, and, traced in shadowy outlines, we saw on the wall, as he said, the grim design of a skeleton head. Other dark and indistinct figures were huddled together near it, but the hand of death had drawn them more feebly - their shape was vague, and might mean anything. Here, then, the unhappy fugitives had found a momentary refuge and a final grave. The burning ashes had covered the house above them, and entered even this secret place.

They had rapidly choked up every avenue, filled the amphorae to the brim, and wrapped the seventeen fugitives in a shroud, close, fine, and stifling. The weary head was seized as it rested against the wall, and fixed there for ever. Here, too, the mistress of the house, as it is believed from the rich bracelets and rings she wore, perished with her house-hold. But the form of her shoulders and bosom remained moulded in the ashes that enclosed her.

You can see to this day, in the Studij of Naples, this strange and sad relic of the dead lady. There is but one opinion amongst the learned concerning the beauty of form it reveals. Her heavy bracelets and rings, and the other costly female ornaments, which she was probably bearing away, and which were found by her, are preserved amongst the oggetti preziosi. Several other skeletons were found on the premises, one of a man, with keys and money-bags, was supposed to have been that of Diomedes, the master of the house. He was flying by the door that faced the sea, when the ashes overtook him.

I was glad to leave this melancholy cellar, where death had taken so dreary an aspect, and visit the remainder of the house. It was large and handsome. We got upon a terrace or roof - I forget which - and sat down in the shade to rest. The view was splendid. The clear sky, the mountains purple, with heat, the green country, the fresh sea-breeze, had not changed during the still flow of eighteen hundred years. Diomedes, his children, and his slaves, had enjoyed here the same delightful coolness of a May morning. Trite, but sad, very sad thoughts, even though we smile at them with pity, are these. It is sickening, at times, to think that calm, material nature should be so strong - so seemingly immortal - and that man, active and living, should pass in this beautiful world, like a fugitive pursued by Time, and to whom is allotted no place of rest.

We left the villa, and visited the tombs which have given the street its name. They are large, and interesting, and well-preserved every one of them is more than enough to throw an archaeologist into raptures, and to fill up a goodly number of octavo pages. That of Diomedes occupies a conspicuous position, and bears the following epitaph, which I copy from one of the works in which it has long been published. To copy on the spot this and such other inscriptions as I shall give, would have been tedious and useless. They have been correctly given by the various writers who have made Pompeii the subject of their investigations; and if I repeat them, it is because the reader would probably not care to look for them where they are to be found:-

M. ARRIUS. I. L. DIOMEDES
SIBI. SUIS. MEMORIE.
MAGISTER. PAG. AUG. FELIC. SUB. URB.

Short and easy as this inscription seems, I have found two different versions of it. According to one authority, it means: “Marcus Arrius Diomedes, the freedman of Julia, and owner of the suburb of Augustus Felix, near the city, raised this tomb to his memory and that of his kindred."
The other translation simply states that Diomedes was the first freedman of his master, and discards Julia as apocryphal. Who could dream that the two letters, I. L, had so much mischief in them?

The inscription on the tomb of the Public Priestess, Mammia, is very honourable to that lady. We are informed that, by a decree of the Decurions, this place of sepulture was allotted to her. This was no ordinary distinction. The inscription is engraved on a semicircular seat, behind which the tomb itself rises. The seat was a pleasant resting-place for tired travellers - the dead and the living met in the ancient world without unseemly dread or horror. The living allowed the dead to sleep at the city-gate; they excluded them from the activity of life, but not from sight and memory ; the dead stayed meekly on the threshold of their old home, and offered the living all they had to give - a place of rest - a pause in the journey of life.

Do the words AUG. EX PAGANO. which refer to Faustus, simply state that he resided in the Augustan suburb; or do they confer upon him the dignity of an Augustal, that is to say, a priest of Augustus. I should be sorry to attempt to decide the question ; but what a God-send Pompeii must be to the learned; Faustus was certainly a distinguished person, for the inscription proceeds to add that the Decurions had conferred upon him, on account of his merits, too, the honour of the Bisellium. The Bisellium was a seat for two persons, and the honour was to sit on it alone in public assemblies. So much did Faustus and his friend Naevoleia think of this Bisellium, that they had it represented on the tomb which was to receive them. However, in a laudable and unselfish spirit, Naevoleia decreed that this place of sepulture should also receive her freedmen and freedwomen.

I should have liked to know the fate of this little family. Did the tomb which Naevoleia had prepared with so much care ever hold her? Are hers the ashes in the earthen urn? or do they belong to Munatius Faustus, who, spite his Bisellium, appears to have come here and followed the way of all flesh? If so, did Naevoleia survive the tragedy of her country, and, wandering in Neapolis, relate, lamenting how, though she had built herself a noble sepulchre, she was never - hard fate - to enjoy it, but must lay her bones and ash in some obscure urn! These speculations answer no great purpose; but they have their use. They irritate matter-of-fact minds who want to have everything clear, and who hate doubt as they would hate an unfinished story; they charm dreamers who like, to perplex away time, and they give occupation to the critical.

The tombs, however, are too numerous here, for everyone to help to build a little history. Besides the private sepulchres, we have the columbarium for the gladiators; the public receptacle for citizens too poor to possess a separate grave; the edifice for the silicernium or funeral repast, and a covered, semicircular seat, erected by the path, for the convenience of travellers, and which had proved as safe a tomb as any. The skeletons of a woman clasping a child in her arms, and of two other children by her, were found here.

There is a third seat by the gate. The skeleton of a soldier, lance in hand, was found here in his niche. Too faithful to desert his post, he had guarded to the last the gates of the city. We passed beneath the broken arch, and found ourselves within Pompeii. A long, narrow street, lined on either side with low, roofless houses, stretched before us in the burning sun. Not a sound was to be heard ; not a soul was visible. We went on visiting houses, seeing temples, leaving one street to enter another, and still meeting the same aspect of things; still surrounded by solitude and silence.

It is difficult, impossible I think, to exaggerate the impression produced on the mind by the deserted city. The most ignorant travellers feel it, as well as the learned. The wearied, the blaséd, who see nothing in all Italy, are moved here. For here, whether we like it or not, we cannot get rid of reality.
Here the Past is Present, and rises before us in its meanest details, and therefore in its greatest power.

We cannot walk ten steps without feeling, "Is it true? Are the people of this city really dead? Are the owners of these shops and houses really gone for ever? Will the worshippers never come back to the temple? Will the citizens never again throng the Forum? Is the garden really forsaken for ever? Will children, girls, and slaves never again gather beneath the colonnade of the villa, or look from the terrace at the purple mountains, with their green slopes and the smoke of distant waterfalls? Which is the truest, that Past, which surrounds us, and seems so near, or that Present, which fades away from thought, and seems so far when we enter this charmed city?”

But, striking as is this first appearance of Pompeii, strongly as it impressed, the town must not be imagined to be in a perfect state of preservation. No doubt, the houses are there, with their courts and their rooms. The temples, the streets, the public edifices, have all survived, or almost all; but the houses are low and roofless, the walls are sunk and broken. It is a city, indeed, but a city on which the ashes of Vesuvius have lain for seventeen centuries, and which time and weather have wasted for more than a hundred years. A few public edifices excepted, nothing large, stately, or magnificent must be expected, under penalty of disappointment; but the very smallness of the houses, the very meanness of the streets, are more impressive than massive, ruins conquering the power of time.

The whole place looks as if struck by some recent calamity and deserted by its terrified inhabitants. I knew it was all an illusion - I knew that the Greeks and Romans were all safe in their graves; but if a gentleman in the-toga, or a lady wrapped in the matronly stola, had stepped out from beneath a porch, or turned the corner of a street, I cannot believe that I should have been much surprised. They would, at least, have been in better keeping with the place than the smart little Italian girl who walked out of one of the smaller houses - it was plain she was a denizen of the place - and whose appearance was followed by the squalling of a very modern baby.

The general smallness of the houses excepted, Pompeii appears to have been a handsome and important city. A considerable portion of its walls still exists. They are built in travertine and volcanic stone, and broad enough for an agreeable evening promenade. Their strength, and the towers and gates which guarded them, show that the Pompeians were not unmindful of defence. The streets of the town are narrow, but so they are in the finest Italian cities. The heat of the climate does not render wide streets desirable. They are paved in the centre with flags of lava, for carriages and horses, and, on either side, there is a raised pavement for foot-passengers. The trottoirs, which were so long confined to England, and which have become popular in the continent within recent times, were in general use amongst the Romans eighteen centuries ago.

This raised pavement, which is made of lime and gravel, is frequently embellished with patterns, or marble, according to the fancy of the rich man whose dwelling it passes. Some wealthy Pompeian citizen, whose name I have forgotten, took care to signify to all the breadth of his property, by an irregular mosaic of bright-coloured marbles, which fronted his house. These streets, though they were not new at the time the city was destroyed, are excellently preserved. The raised pavements, the kerb-stones, the stepping-stones across the causeway, to avoid having wet feet when the heavy Italian rain did not flow away fast enough through the drains, the deep dents which the wheels of cars had worn in the lava-flags, are fresh as if crowds, cars, and horses had passed here yesterday.

Shops are numerous. They cluster round the houses of the rich landlord whose property they are, and who derives a considerable revenue from letting them to tradesmen. They are almost exactly like the shops of Sorrento and other small places round Naples. Business, not show, is their aim. Some are mere stone counters, with round holes, in which the pointed amphora of oil or wine is sunk; and, to all appearance, the customer stands in the street to be served. The houses themselves vary in size and beauty, according to the wealth of the owner. The villa of Diomedes is the handsomest and largest, but elegant and luxurious dwellings are numerous.

The house of the vestals is very pretty. The hospitable SALVE greets you from the threshold on which it is written in mosaic. Within, you find courts, a garden, a sacrarium for worship, and the closet-like rooms which the ladies of the house slept in. Handsome paintings, stucco columns, a quantity of female ornaments, and the skeletons of two women and a little dog were found in this house when it was first discovered.

The house of the tragic poet seems to have belonged to less amiable owners. The mosaic of the vestibule formerly portrayed an angry cur, with the warning, inscription, “ CAVE CANEM " (Beware of the dog). This mosaic is now in the Studìj. The house is pretty, but small and not equal to the house of Pansa, a public officer and a rich Pompeian. Four-small shops front the street, but do not detract from the stateliness of the entrance, through which we see the suite of courts and rooms on to the garden behind.

From the vestibule we enter into the atrium, a court with the impluvium, or basin, in the centre, to receive the rain-water. Around the atrium are four of these cupboard-like Roman bed-rooms, which always excite the admiration of moderns. Beyond the atrium comes the tablinum where the family pictures and objects of vertu were kept-hence its name. After the tablinum appears the peristyle -another court like the atrium, but supported by pillars. A square impluvium occupies the centre of the peristyle, and more closets for beds are to be found on either side. In a corner, on the left, we find the kitchen; the dining-room was on the right, between the two courts. A few small rooms, a terrace, and garden close all that remains to us of the conveniences of this Roman household, for the upper floor of the house has perished, and the bottom is roofless.

The house of the Faun is in the same style, and very graceful. The atrium is paved in jasper, agate, and alabaster. The peristyle, or second court, was originally a garden, with a fountain in the centre. Beyond it extends a second garden, with column, and which is supposed to have been planted with trees. Here, seated in the shade of his laurels and planetrees, the master of the house might worship, the lares to whose honour he had erected two temples, or dream away the hours as he looked at Vesuvius, serene and silent.

The public part of houses was the handsomest - it was natural that it should be so - and, in the same spirit, the public buildings of a people whose life was spent in public, surpass in magnificence the efforts of private citizens. The Forum is still very fine, though it had suffered severely from the earthquake of the year 63, and was not yet repaired when the city was destroyed, sixteen years later. It is a hundred feet wide, five hundred feet long, and is surrounded by the finest temples of the city. The stately temple of Jupiter rising, at its further extremity, above a flight of steps, shattered by the earthquake, overlooks the whole place, and adds considerably to its magnificence.

The temple of Venus, which is close by, was likewise a handsome and elegant building. Not far away from it is the Basilica, which was both the court of justice and the exchange of the Pompeians. Here criminals were tried. The judge sat aloft, on a stone tribunal, and we were shown a dreary subterranean hole, and told that prisoners were kept in it, chained to the walls, and questioned through the grated openings in the flags above; but it is a doubtful fact - and God forbid that even Romano should have been so barbarous! If it was true - if the sad voices of strangers and slave, - for Romans could not be treated so, rose hopeless and despairing to the cold ear of the judge on his seat of honour and state, and found not mercy there - for justice was not to be thought of - was the fate which swept away the judge from his tribunal, the crowd from the Forum, the people from the streets, and left these places desolate for ever, too hard a fate? True, the circus was barbarous, but it had its excuse - the people loved blood, and it was a pleasure - the pitiless dungeon has none.

Nine temples, in all, have, I believe, been discovered in Pompeii; the most remarkable are, the temples of Jupiter, of Venus, the Pantheon, where the twelve vacant pedestals of the supreme gods were found without their divinities, and the curious little temple of Isis. We saw here the secret biding-place, whence the priest spoke in the name of the goddess, and delivered the oracles of heavenly wisdom. The statue of Isis is in the Egyptian gallery at~ the Studij. The face is sweet and grave ; in her left hand the Egyptian divinity holds the sacred and mysterious sistrum.

The temples, the two Forums - for there is a smaller one, the Basilica, show that the Pompeians were amply provided with suitable buildings, so far as the worship of the Gods and the business of life went; the amphitheatre and the two theatres prove that they were not unmindful of pleasure. When the gate of Herculaneum was first discovered, an inscription in red and black paint - the Romans not having paper, had no playbills - announced that the gladiators of Rufus would give two combats in the amphitheatre, and moreover that there would be a hunt, with a velarium, that is to say, with an awning to keep off the sun.

There is another announcement to the same purport, and which gives the name of another courtier to pubic favour.
" The gladiators of Aulus Svezius Cerius, Aedile, will fight in Pompeii the last day of the Kalends of June. There will be a hunt and velarium."
The announcement of the hunt comes last, as a sort of N.B. Not without a purpose is this. Wild beasts are dearer than men; and a hunt is a treat indeed. The worn steps of the Pompeian amphitheatre show how much the citizens valued such treats. It is well preserved, and could hold about twenty thousand persons. The entire population of the town, not including children or slaves, could therefore enjoy the pleasures of the arena.

The amphitheatre of Pompeii, though far better preserved than the Colosseum, impresses less, because it is generally seen after it; but Rome has nothing like the two theatres we see here. The tragic theatre could be acted in still. Sad, passionate Phaedra could cross that stage lamenting; here Medea could look at her children playing, and brood over a fearful revenge. Through these doors behind, we might see and hear the chorus of sad, captive Trojan women, passing like a funereal train, and mourning over fallen Troy, whilst Clytemnestra murders Agamemnon in a distant hall of the palace of Argos. And grouped around that narrow stage, where all the dreary, heroic, and noble visions of the ancient world passed in turns, might sit the Decurions, the Augustals, the citizens who enjoyed the Bisellium in the first ranks; the military officers behind them, and, last and highest, the people and the women to whom, before the ages of chivalry, the worst places everywhere were assigned.

The Odeon, or comic theatre, is likewise very well preserved. In one of the rooms of the Studij, devoted to the relics of Pompeii and Herculaneum, you can see little ivory counters, Tesserae they were called, which were generally used in public places as cards of admission. In theatres they were inscribed with the name of the play to be acted and the seat to which they gave a right. Thus, one belonging to this Odeon of Pompeii, directs you to go in by the second door, and to take the third corner, eighth row in the theatre; the play acted will be the Casina, by Plautus.

These were the chief public buildings of Pompeii; but there were, and still are, others of lesser importance, smaller and more domestic. We may still visit the barracks near the two theatres, and read, if we have skill, time, and learning, the rude scrawls of idle soldiers; clear, well-cut, legible inscriptions never tempt me, but, I confess the strange, ill-written, ill-spelt fragments, which one sees everywhere about Pompeian walls and places, are most tantalizing. Some are in the language of the Osci, the old inhabitants of Campania, and unintelligible to any, save savants of the first water; others are in common Latin, but more easily deciphered at home in learned books than in the burning sun and in a street of Pompeii.

Some of these inscriptions are advertisements. They tell the curious idlers when the gladiators shall fight and wild beasts roar in the arena; they tell business people about the letting of shops and houses, and refer you to obliging landlords, who will give lease, security, &c., on the most moderate terms; or they are signs put up by trading bodies, such as, “The carpenters and carmen recommend themselves to the Aedile Marcellinus,” or by individual tradesmen, like this one of the Scribe Issus, who ”beseeches Marcus Cerrinius Vatia, the AEdile, to extend his patronage to him” of which favour the said Issus modestly declares himself to be deserving. “Dignus est," he says, in his grand Roman way, which is only a stately puff.

Besides the barracks, we have the baths, small, but curious; snugly built, so as not to be exposed to the north wind, and heated by flues, fragments of which are still visible. The cold, lukewarm, and hot baths; the niches for undressing, the perfumes and ointments of this popular and favourite luxury of the ancients, were all to be found here. The baths are near the Forum, and by its eastern entrance, a wide room, with a stone seat, and the inscription, VARNA DISCENTIBUS, is supposed to have been a school. However, it was a holyday when we saw it. Varna. was out, and the pupils were invisible. An inn, a public granary, a Fullonica, or scouring house, and other places of general interest, are to be found in various parts of the city.

The beautiful gate, built by the Priestess Eumachia, has been removed to the Studij, as well as her graceful statue, and the inscription, which recorded that the crypt Portico, the Chalcidicum and the Fullonica of Pompeii were erected at her expense. A copy of the statue stands in the place whence the original was removed. That original has not the grand Greek style, but it is sweet and charming; modest grace breathes in the folds of the drapery ; the face looks a portrait. Beauty is immortal. The handsome and stately priestess lives to this day in an Anglo-Norman lady, who has not seen, and does not care to see, this faithful image of herself. Resemblances are capricious, and do not always take the form of beauty; I have seen the characteristic features of Trajan very correctly repeated in an Irish family more remarkable for genius than for good looks.

These are the chief objects of interest in Pompeii; the exact order in which these places and buildings occurred on our way, I have not always given, lest I should commit unconscious mistakes. Pompeii is large and perplexing. The streets, with their roofless houses, look very much alike; here and there you have a little variety, in a raised bank of earth, overgrown with nodding trees, which grow - a very tantalizing thought - above more buried marvels, left there for some royal visitor to have the first sight of, or, what is just as likely, for future generations to groan over the supine ness of this; or a cluster of buildings and temples, as in the case of the Forum, which was the centre of Pompeian architecture, individualizes a certain part of the city to the mind’s eye, and leaves it as a clear and distinct image; but as, unless you are a wilful traveller, or know Pompeii better than the men who spend their life in showing it, you generally follow your guide with blind docility, going in and out as he, tells you, crossing streets, entering alleys, and visiting places, without knowing why, it is almost impossible, without writing it down on the spot-and who can have the heart to write in Pompeii? - to know exactly whether it was that house or this you saw first; whether you took that street or this turning.

Thus I have but an imperfect remembrance of the spots, where we saw, however, three of the things that struck us most forcibly ; memorials more impressive than remarkable, of the ancient world through which we had been journeying. -Pompeii had, as I have already mentioned, been severely. damaged by the earthquake of the year 63. The citizens were anxious to repair the injury one of their temples had sustained. New columns were to be provided; architect and sculptor set to work. The columns are there cut and shaped, but not finished; the carving of the capitals had begun, when temple and builder were buried together. And still the column stands there, rude and unfinished, vainly, waiting for man’s hand to fashion it. The God and the worshippers have been swept away ; time devoured them both, and left that pillar as a memorial and a sign.

To see the amphitheatre, we crossed a green field, with trees and flowers. We came back through it, and entered once more the sunburnt streets, hedged with roofless houses. Our guide paused before a small public well, which stood, I believe, in a thoroughfare. He called it the “Fountain of Fortune” from the cornucopia which adorned it. It represented a round, shining, marble face, smoothed and worn by time, in which the sculptor, indeed, had never thrown much expression, and which an open mouth, meant for the water to flow through, contributed to render vacant and unmeaning. It was a fair specimen of street art. Without speaking, our guide, who never wasted words, placed his right hand on the back of the fountain, his left on the margin of the well, and, stooping, drank an imaginary draught of fictive water, falling from the ever open mouth of the goddess; after which he rose, and removing his hands, showed us -that, where be had laid them, other hands, ages ago, had worn the stone into two deep dents.

It was a picture - rapid, vivid in the extreme. A whole scene of life, ancient and modern, passed before us in a moment. The houses were roofed, the streets were living, the day was hot, a crowd had gathered round the well. We saw the brown, half-naked children, the thirsty slave, the girl with her pitcher, waiting turns by the fountain, drinking, drawing water, laughing, exchanging jests, idling away time, and filling this place, now so quiet, with Greek and Latin talking.

The third memorial was almost puerile, and quite unworthy of ancient gravity. It was a little garden, belonging to one of the many houses we visited, and which had evidently been the delight of a Pompeian citizen's heart. It was laid out in approved cockney style. Such gardens every one has seen again and again near London or any large city. To this day, there is one in Plough Lane, which offers an almost exact resemblance to the Pompeian garden.

It was square and small. A little niche, curiously stuck over with shells, had once been a fountain, and could have been one still. Little statuettes of heathen divinities were perched up on tiny mounds of earth and rock-work, which had been formerly covered with grass or flowers; and between the mounds ran tiny paths, which must have required a careful tucking-up of Roman skirts for the deities not to be injured by some hasty passer-by.

It was touching and pitiable to look at this little place, which had cost time, and care, and thought, and to see that ages may pass, and that man is still an overgrown child, setting his heart on trifles that have still the redeeming virtue of keeping him out of mischief. Better by far the little garden of the Pompeian citizen than the amphitheatre, where he saw man butchered by man - or even than the Forum, with its statues and temples, where consciences were sold and bought. Better the garden than the Basilica and its dreary hole of torment.

This is all which I remember of Pompeii - much has escaped both observation and memory, much was lost by ignorance of ancient manners. We had done with our guide, and he had done with us. He led us back to the entrance of the city, and, in the presence of his fellow-keepers, be gravely asked, “If we were satisfied with him?”
“ Quite," we replied; and we put in his hand what we considered a sufficient reward for the trouble he had taken.
He glanced at it, and said, with much dignity:-
“And I am satisfied with you.”
The momentary surprise I felt at his remark showed me how little we are accustomed to the display of independence from persons we have taken the abit to consider inferiors.

Having thus signified his approbation, our guide handed the money to one of his companions, to put it in the common stock. It is a sensible and just rule amongst these men, to divide fairly what they get from visitors, who ore thus spared a great deal of annoyance.
A gentle bend of the head and touching o the cap were the parting salutation of our guide. He belonged to the grave and lofty variety of the Italian - he spoke little, but to the purpose.

We were crossing a street of Pompeii, when we witnessed a disgraceful scene, which I omitted mentioning in its place. A well dressed man, an Italian, was upbraiding his coachman for having promised to make him dine in Pompeii, which is royal property, and will not permit such liberties; but, not satisfied with reprimand, he raised his cane, and struck him severely. The unfortunate vetturino screamed and jumped with pain. Our guide frowned, and, looking at us, said significantly:-
“Gentlemen wonder when they get a stab of the knife now and then.”
There was a whole social system in the words. The insolent cane on the side of strength - the perfidious, revengeful knife on the side of the weak.

We went back to the station; it was early yet; no train to Naples was expected for some time; the officials were absent and as invisible as the Pompeians, whose city we had just left. Spite the heat, we, sat down outside the station, and stayed there till the train came up.
Noonday stillness slept on the quiet country; mountains surrounded and overlooked the landscape. It was wild and beautiful in its Italian way, for English parks or gentle lake scenery do not thrive here. It was lonely, too, though it bore signs of culture; but neither man’s voice nor man’s presence were near.

It is the misery of travelling, that you cannot bear to leave beautiful places. To leave Pompeii, never again, perhaps, to see the wonderful old city; to lose for ever the presence of those mountains, which were strange yesterday, and will be strange tomorrow, to be divided from the beautiful south and its world of memorials, stranger than a fairy tale, may seem little to those who have never, or rarely, moved from the circle of home, or who have not stayed away long enough to lose the sense of its presence, but it is a pain, and a great one, when the last days of your Italian year are drawing to a close. One could not indeed, if one wished it, stay in Pompeii; but Pompeii was Italy just then, and Italy in May is Paradise.