impede your progress, and, if possible, to compel you to get in and ride; for which kindness you feel a strong inclination to knock the rascals from their boxes, from which, however, you are deterred by the reflection that you are thereby waging war with nothing to gain and all to lose.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

On the evening of the 26th of November we made an early rise, and finding the heavens free of clouds we prepared to visit the ruins of Pompeii. We had a rank republican for our guide, who informed us that the king spent the greater part of his time at his palace in the country, and seldom came to Naples for fear of being assassinated. Indeed wherever and whenever in Italy we were enabled to converse with the populace, we found a republican, or at least a revolutionary spirit running riot through their thoughts. But at nine o'clock, A. M., we were on the move from the railway station, and winding along the shore of the bay, now looking out upon its joyous waters, and now darting through immense quarries of lava, we passed by Portici, Resini, Torre del Greco, Torre del Annunciata, and moving partly around the base of Vesuvius we were deposited at the Pompeii station. Along the route we observed cotton growing, but the stalks were small, the bolls dirty and undeveloped, and the quality of the cotton, of course, indifferent. At Hotel Diomede one of the guides, in government uniform, took us in charge, and ascending a slight rise of ground we stood amid the ruins of Pompeii. ( 260 )

You do not descend into the ground, as we had been led to suppose, to enter this fated city; the entire superstratum of lava, ashes and soil, has all been removed, and the naked walls of the city lie before you, but robbed of their chief beauty and valuables. We entered "the city of the dead" on part of the old Appian Way, in whose stone pavements you may still trace the mark of wheels. The streets of Pompeii are very narrow, the houses very small and generally of one story only-but were most elegantly and luxuriously furnished. They are not so high nor spacious as the buildings of modern times. Their construction was curious, but most convenient. You enter by the vestibulum into the atrium, round which are ranged the cubicula. In the center of the atrium is the impluvium, a receptacle for the water in time of rain, as the atrium is unprotected by any roof. In the rear of the atrium is the peristylum. All of these apartments are on a small scale, and to judge from the size of their dining-rooms one would conclude that the citizens of Pompeii esteemed it eminently ungenteel to give large entertainments.

The work of excavation is still going on at Pompeii. According to the map, much of the city still remains under-ground, though it is probable the best portion has been disentombed. Mosaics, frescoes, sculptures - all that bespeaks the perfection of art and civilization may here be found, and forming an overwhelming evidence of the luxury, genius and refinement of these people. Not only this, but such proof

of their abandoned and licentious morals, such confirmation of a lascivious and wanton brutality, that one cannot wonder that the judgments of Heaven should have fallen upon their heads, even to their utter extinction as a city. It is both melancholy and humiliating to wander through the empty rooms, stripped of their ornaments, save here and there some fragments of mosaic or some half-obliterated fresco and to think that all our efforts are bounded by a bourne long since reached in these unburied walls, and that our boasted march of intellect has had a parallel in the calendar of time. The seal of two thousand years has been removed, and we discover the corpse of a mere provincial town of the Roman Empire, arrayed in more than the laborious splendor of our most exalted capitals. In such a place the ghostly phantoms of by-gone grandeur rear their sable images before the explorer of the past, and with an unearthly greatness haunt the soul. We feel that we are, at least, but imitators, and if all the inventions of past days could be rent from the dark cloud in which they are shrouded, we might blush for the boyishness of our pride. We shall not be surprised if they should one of these days find a telegraph office, or a steam engine with an improvement on the caloric principle, in one of the Roman Villas. A few of the singular features of Pompeii are the tombs, situated immediately on the public street; also an assignation house immediately opposite the Temple of the Vestal Virgins.

But for a brief outline of our explorations. We

went first to the House of Diomede, and descended into the wine cellars of the wealthy roue. These vaults consist of a long under-ground hall, running along the outer foundations of the building, forming three sides of a parallelogram. We saw there many of the old wine-jars, their contents, singular to relate, having been displaced and supplanted by the penetrating ashes. The floors of this house were laid with mosaic. After exploring the dining-room, the fishpond, and the wine-cooler, we proceeded up the Rue des Tombeaux-so called from the tombs and monuments erected on either side-and entered the city proper. Attached to one of these tombs, we saw the furnace used for burning the bodies of the dead. On the right-hand, as you enter the city, not far from the gate, there are circular seats of marble, where the priests were wont to sit and converse on an afternoon. Around this circle we observed the following inscription:

Maxima, P. F. Sacerdoti Publicæ Locus. Sepultur Datus Decurionum Decreto.

We entered the city by the Porte d' Herculanum, and saw the spot, where the faithful Roman soldier stood, and perished at his post. His skull, skeleton and helmet were found, and placed in the Museum. A good portion of the ancient walls of Pompeii still exist. We saw in one dilapidated house, the family altar, where the household made their private sacrifice. On each of its four sides were appropriate frescoes. In the court-yards we found fountains,