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Visit to Naples, Herculaneum, and Pompeii.

I have passed my first day in Naples in wandering about, without any definite object. I have walked around its famous bay, looked at the lazzaroni, watched the smoke of Vesuvius, traversed the square where the young Conradine was beheaded and Masaniello commenced his revolt, mounted to the castle of St. Elmo, and dined on macaroni in a trattoria, where the Italian I had learned in Tuscany was of little more use to me than Greek.

The bay surprised me most. It is a collection of beauties, which seems more a miracle than an accident of nature. It is a deep crescent of sixteen miles across, and a little more in length, between the points of which lies a chain of low mountains, called the island of Capri, looking, from the shore, like a vast heap of clouds brooding at sea. In the bosom of the crescent lies Naples. Its palaces and principal buildings cluster around the base of an abrupt hill crowned by the castle of St. Elmo, and its half million of inhabitants have stretched their dwellings over the plain towards Vesuvius, and back upon Posilipo, bordering the curve of the shore on the right and left, with a broad white band of city and village for twelve or fourteen miles. Back from this, on the southern side, a very gradual ascent brings your eye to the base of Vesuvius, which rises from the plain in a sharp cone, broken in at the top, its black and lava-streaked sides descending with the evenness of a sand-hill, on one side to the disinterred city of Pompeii, and on the other to the royal palace of Portici, built over the yet unexplored Herculaneum. In the centre of the crescent of the shore projecting into the sea by a bridge of two or three hundred feet in length, stands a small castle built upon a rock, on one side of which lies the mole with its shipping. The other side is bordered, close to the beach, with the gardens of the royal villa, a magnificent promenade of a mile, ornamented with fancy temples and statuary, on the smooth alleys of which may be met, at certain hours, all that is brilliant and gay in Naples. Farther on, toward the northern horn of the bay, lies the mount of Posilipo, the ancient coast of Baiæ, Cape Mysene, and the mountain isles of Procida and Ischia, the last of which still preserves the costumes of Greece, from which it was colonised centuries ago. The bay itself is as blue as the sky, scarcely ruffled all day with the wind, and covered by countless boats fishing or creeping on with their picturesque lateen sails just filled: while the atmosphere over sea, city, and mountain, is of a clearness and brilliancy which is inconceivable in other countries. The superiority of the sky and climate of Italy is no fable in any part of this delicious land—but in Naples, if the day I have spent here is a fair specimen, it is matchless even for Italy. There is something like a fine blue veil of a most dazzling transparency over the mountains around, but above and between there seems nothing but viewless space—nothing like air that a bird could rise upon. The eye gets intoxicated almost with gazing on it.

We have just returned from our first excursion to Pompeii. It lies on the southern side of the bay, just below the volcano which overwhelmed it, about twelve miles from Naples. The road lay along the shore, and is lined with villages, which are only separated by name. The first is Portici, where the king has a summer palace, through the court of which the road passes. It is built over Herculaneum, and the danger of undermining it has stopped the excavations of unquestionably the richest city buried by Vesuvius. We stopped at a little gate in the midst of the village, and taking a guide and two torches, descended to the only part of it now visible, by near a hundred steps. We found ourselves at the back of an amphitheatre. We entered the narrow passage, and the guide pointed to several of the upper seats for the spectators which had been partially dug out. They were lined with marble, as the whole amphitheatre appears to have been. To realise the effect of these ruins, it is to be remembered that they are imbedded in solid lava, like rock, near a hundred feet deep, and that the city, which is itself ancient, is built above them. The carriage in which we came, stood high over our heads, in a time-worn street, and ages had passed and many generations of men had lived and died over a splendid city, whose very name had been forgotten! It was discovered in sinking a well, which struck the door of the amphitheatre. The guide took us through several other long passages, dug across and around it, showing us the orchestra, the stage, the numerous entrances, and the bases of several statues which are taken to the museum at Naples. This is the only part of the excavation that remains open, the others having again been filled with rubbish. The noise of the carriages overhead in the streets of Portici was like a deafening thunder.

In a hurry to get to Pompeii, which is much more interesting, we ascended to daylight, and drove on. Coasting along the curve of the bay, with only a succession of villas and gardens between us and the beach, we soon came to Torre del Greco, a small town which was overwhelmed by an eruption thirty-nine years ago. Vesuvius here rises gradually on the left, the crater being at a distance of five miles. The road crossed the bed of dry lava, which extends to the sea in a broad, black mass of cinders, giving the country the most desolate aspect. The town is rebuilt just beyond the ashes, and the streets are crowded with the thoughtless inhabitants, who buy and sell, and lounge in the sun, with no more remembrance or fear of the volcano, than the people of a city in America.

Another half-hour brought us to a long, high bank of earth and ashes, thrown out from the excavations; and passing on, we stopped at the gate of Pompeii. A guide met us, and we entered. We found ourselves in the ruins of a public square, surrounded with small low columns of red marble. On the right were several small prisons, in one of which was found the skeleton of a man with its feet in iron stocks. The cell was very small, and the poor fellow must have been suffocated without even a hope of escape. The columns just in front were scratched with ancient names, possibly those of the guard stationed at the door of the prison. This square is surrounded with shops, in which were found the relics and riches of tradesmen, consisting of an immense variety. In one of the buildings was found the skeleton of a new-born child, and in one part of the square the skeletons of sixty men, supposed to be soldiers, who, in the severity of Roman discipline, dared not fly, and perished at their post. There were several advertisements of gladiators on the pillars, and it appears that at the time of the eruption, the inhabitants of Pompeii were principally assembled in the great amphitheatre, at a show.

We left the square, and visiting several small private houses near it, passed into a street with a slight ascent, the pavement of which was worn deep with carriage-wheels. It appeared to have led from the upper part of the city directly to the sea, and in rainy weather must have been quite a channel for water, as high stones at small distances were placed across the street, leaving open places between for the carriage-wheels. (I think there is a contrivance of the same kind in one of the streets of Baltimore.)

We mounted thence to higher ground, the part of the city not excavated. A peasant’s hut and a large vineyard stand high above the ruins, and from the door the whole city and neighbourhood are seen to advantage. The effect of the scene is strange beyond description. Columns, painted walls, wheel-worn streets, amphitheatres, palaces, all as lonely and deserted as the grave, stand around you, and behind is a poor cottage and a vineyard of fresh earth just putting forth its buds, and beyond, the broad, blue, familiar bay, covered with steamboats and sails, and populous modern Naples in the distance—a scene as strangely mingled, perhaps, as any to be found in the world. We looked around for a while, and then walked on through the vineyard to the amphitheatre which lies beyond, near the other gate of the city. It is a gigantic ruin, completely excavated, and capable of containing twenty thousand spectators. The form is oval, and the architecture particularly fine. Besides the many vomitories or passages for ingress and egress, there are three smaller alleys, one used as the entrance for wild beasts, one for the gladiators, and the third as that by which the dead were taken away. The skeletons of eight lions and a man, supposed to be their keeper, were found in one of the dens beneath, and those of five other persons near the different doors. It is presumed that the greater proportion of the inhabitants of Pompeii must have escaped by sea, as the eruption occurred while they were nearly all assembled on this spot, and these few skeletons only have been found.^[1]

We returned through the vineyard, and stopping at the cottage, called for some of the wine of the last vintage (delicious, like all those in the neighbourhood of Vesuvius), and producing our basket of provisions, made a most agreeable dinner. Two parties of English passed while we were sitting at our out-of-doors table. Our attendant was an uncommonly pretty girl of sixteen, born on the spot, and famous just now as the object of a young English nobleman’s particular admiration. She is a fine, dark-eyed creature, but certainly no prettier than every fifth peasant girl in Italy. Having finished our picturesque meal, we went down into the ancient streets once more, and arrived at the small temple of Isis, a building in excellent preservation. On the altar stood, when it was excavated, a small statue of Isis, of exquisite workmanship (now in the museum, to which all the curiosities of the place are carried), and behind this we were shown the secret penetralia, where the priests were concealed, who uttered the oracles supposed to be pronounced by the goddess. The access was by a small secret flight of stairs, communicating with the apartments of the priests in the rear. The largest of these apartments was probably the refectory, and here was found a human skeleton near a table, upon which lay dinner utensils, chicken bones, bones of fishes, bread and wine, and a faded garland of flowers. In the kitchen, which we next visited, were found cooking utensils, remains of food, and the skeleton of a man leaning against the wall with an axe in his hand, and near him a considerable hole, which he had evidently cut to make his escape when the door was stopped by cinders. The skeleton of one of the priests was found prostrate, near the temple, and in his hand three hundred and sixty coins of silver, forty-two of bronze, and eight of gold, wrapped strongly in a cloth. He had probably stopped before his flight to load himself with the treasures of the temple, and was overtaken by the shower of cinders and suffocated. The skeletons of one or two were found upon beds, supposed to have been smothered while asleep or ill. The temple is beautifully paved with mosaic (as indeed are all the better private houses and public buildings of Pompeii), and the open inner court is bordered with a quadrilateral portico. The building is of the Roman Doric order. (I have neither time nor room to enumerate the curiosities found here and in the other parts of the city, and I only notice those which most impressed my memory. The enumeration by Madame Stark, will be found exceedingly interesting to those who have not read her laconic guide-book.)

We passed next across a small street to the tragic theatre, a large handsome building, where the seats for the vestals, consuls, and other places of honour, are well preserved, and thence up the hill to the temple of Hercules, which must have been a noble edifice, commanding a superb view of the sea.

The next object was the triangular forum, an open space surrounded with three porticoes, supported by a hundred Doric columns. Here were found several skeletons, one of which was that of a man who had loaded himself with plunder. Gold and silver coins, cups, rings, spoons, buckles, and other things, were found under him. Near here, under the ruins of a wall, were discovered skeletons of a man and a woman, and on the arms of the latter two beautiful bracelets of gold.

We entered from this a broad street, lined with shops, against the walls of which were paintings in fresco, and inscriptions in deep-red paint, representing the occupations and recording the names of the occupants. In one of them was found a piece of salt-fish, smelling strongly after seventeen centuries! In a small lane leading from this street, the guide led us to a shop, decorated with pictures of fish of various kinds, and furnished with a stove, marble dressers, and earthern jars, supposed to have belonged to a vender of fish and olives. A little further on was a baker’s shop, with a well-used oven, in which was found a batch of bread burnt to a cinder. Near this was the house of a midwife. In it were found several instruments of a simple and excellent construction, unknown to the moderns, a forceps, remains of medicines in a wooden box, and various pestles and mortars. The walls were ornamented with frescoes of the Graces, Venus, and Adonis, and similar subjects.

The temple of the pantheon is a magnificent ruin, and must have been one of the choicest in Pompeii. Its walls are decorated with exquisite paintings in fresco, arabesques, mosaics, &c., and its court is one hundred and eighty feet long, and two hundred and thirty broad, and contains an altar, around which are twelve pedestals for statues of the twelve principal deities of the ancients. Gutters of marble are placed at the base of the triclinium, to carry away the blood of the victims. A thousand coins of bronze, and forty or fifty of silver, were found near the sanctuary.

We passed on to the Curea, a semi-circular building, for the discussion of matters of religion by the magistrates; a temple of Romulus; the remains of a temple of Janus; a splendid building called the chalcidicum, constructed by the priestess Eumachea and her son, and dedicated as a temple of concord, and came at last, by a regular ascent, into a large and spacious square, called the forum civile. This part of the city of Pompeii must have been extremely imposing. Porticoes, supported by noble columns, encompassed its vast area; the pedestals of colossal statues, erected to distinguished citizens, are placed at the corners; at the northern extremity rose a stately temple of Jupiter: on the right was another temple to Venus; beyond, a large public edifice, the use of which is not known; across the narrow street which bounds it stood the Basilica, an immense building, which served as a court of justice and an exchange.

We passed out at the gate of the city and stopped at a sentry-box, in which was found a skeleton in full armour—a soldier who had died at his post! From hence formerly the road descended directly to the sea, and for some distance was lined on either side with the magnificent tombs of the Pompeians. Among them was that of the Vestal virgins, left unfinished when the city was destroyed; a very handsome tomb, in which was found the skeleton of a woman, with a lamp in one hand and jewels in the other (who had probably attempted to rob before her flight), and a very handsome square monument, with a beautiful relievo on one of the slabs, representing (as emblematic of death) a ship furling her sails on coming into port. Near one of the large family sepulchres stands a small semi-circular room, intended for the funeral feast after a burial; and here were found the remains of three men around a table, scattered with relics of a meal. They were overwhelmed ere their feast was concluded over the dead!

The principal inn of Pompeii was just inside the gate. We went over the ruins of it. The skeleton of an ass was found chained to a ring in the stable, and the tire of a wheel lay in the court-yard. Chequers are painted on the side of the door as a sign.

Below the tombs stands the “suburban villa of Diomed,” one of the most sumptuous edifices of Pompeii. Here was found everything that the age could furnish for the dwelling of a man of wealth. Statues, frescoes, jewels, wine, household utensils of every description, skeletons of servants and dogs, and every kind of elegant furniture. The family was large, and in the first moment of terror, they all retreated to a wine vault under the villa, where their skeletons (eighteen grown persons and two children) were found seventeen centuries after! There was really something startling in walking through the deserted rooms of this beautiful villa—more than one feels elsewhere in Pompeii, for it is more like the elegance and taste of our own day; and with the brightness of the preserved walls, and the certainty with which the use of each room is ascertained, it seems as if the living inhabitant would step from some corner and welcome you. The figures on the walls are as fresh as if done yesterday. The baths look as if they might scarce be dry from use. It seems incredible that the whole Christian age has elapsed since this was a human dwelling—occupied by its last family while our Saviour was walking the world!

It would be tedious to enumerate all the curious places to which the guide led us in this extraordinary city. On our return through the streets, among the objects of interest was the house of Sallust, the historian. I did not think, when reading his beautiful Latin at school, that I should ever sit down in his parlour! Sallust was rich, and his house is uncommonly handsome. Here is his chamber, his inner court, his kitchen, his garden, his dining-room, his guest-chamber, all perfectly distinguishable by the symbolical frescoes on the wall. In the court was a fountain of pretty construction, and opposite, in the rear, was a flower-garden, containing arrangements for dining in open air in summer. The skeleton of a female (supposed to be the wife of the historian) and three servants, known by their different ornaments, were found near the door of the street.

We passed a druggist’s shop and a cook-shop, and entered, treading on a beautiful mosaic floor, the “house of the dramatic poet,” so named from the character of the paintings with which it is ornamented throughout. The frescoes found here are the finest ancient paintings in the world, and from some peculiarity in the rings upon the fingers of the female figures, they are supposed to be family portraits. With assistance like this, how easily the imagination repeoples these deserted dwellings.

A heavy shower drove us to the shelter of the wine-vaults of Diomed, as we were about stepping into our carriage to return to Naples. We spent the time in exploring, and found some thirty or forty earthen jars still half-buried in the ashes which drifted through the loop-holes of the cellar. In another half-hour the black cloud had passed away over Vesuvius, and the sun set behind Posilipo in a flood of splendour. We were at home soon after dark, having had our fill of astonishment for once. I have seen nothing in my life so remarkable as this disentombed city. I have passed over, in the description, many things which were well worth noting, but it would have grown into a mere catalogue else. You should come to Italy. It is a privilege to realise these things which could not be bought too dearly, and they cannot be realised but by the eye. Description conveys but a poor shadow of them to the fancy.

[1]	“The number of skeletons hitherto disinterred in Pompeii and its suburbs is three hundred.”—Stark.