Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/949

 1869.] A Recent Visit to Pompeii. 773 A RECENT VISIT TO POMPEII. A CORRESPONDENT of the Con- tinental Gazette, published at Paris, gives the following highly inter- esting details of a visit to the exhumed city, which presents such fresh and bright observations and passing-thoughts that all our readers must feel interested in them. He writes : Naples, April 12, 1869. My visit to Pompeii was so interest- ing that I have concluded to prepare a short narrative of it : I rose one morning to see Vesuvius under the dawning day. From the sharp cone that formed the lofty summit the white smoke was ascending in masses which widened and rolled in, the one upon the other, as they floated off to the sky. The evening preceding my visit the intermittent flashes of flame from the top and the girdle of fire, which the mountain wore upon its side facing Naples, made it look terrible. But in the morning and all through the day the smoke curled upwardly in wreaths soft and graceful, as though it were a volume of incense from an altar of thanksgiving, while the sunshine hid the ruckty glow of the lava beneath its more brilliant splendoi*. After breakfast, carriage and guide being ready at the appointed time, we started for Pompeii. Mile after mile through the city, along the crowded and jammed and piled up streets, great rows of shining and flashing houses on either side, and between them such a packing together of donkeys, mules, vehicles, and all sorts, sizes, and shades of people ; screams, yells, shouts, and all other out- bursts of sound possible here and im- possible everywhere except here ; every driver cracking his whip so as to outdo every other driver ; a menagerie of goats with bells, and asses braying at the highest pitch of possibility ; a run-mad bedlam of itinerant pedlars and beggars drumming on their chins and chaunting their beseechings for money, and Punch in his paradise, and drums and horns; this was our ride through the gayest, wildest, motliest, and withal, the most picturesque city on earth. The whole population seemed to have turned out of doors ; families were keeping house in the streets ; women knitting, sewing, and washing in the streets ; blacksmiths, and all kinds of workmen at their trades in the streets, the whole making an up- roar and a tumult on a scale of facetious variet} 7 inimitable, which, like the many- hued sky and landscape of Naples, once seen, lies in the mind undisturbed for ever. Through these long avenues of people we gradually passed into thor- oughfares more quiet. But the great shadows of Vesuvius hung over us all the way, relieved, however, by smiling fields and the sunny surface of the beau- tiful bay ; the former fringing its grace- ful slopes, and the latter curving around its majestic base. When we left the carriages, obtained our tickets, and passed within the entrance that led to Pompeii, the sudden change to silence and solitude was like leaving one world for another. Pompeii lies about thir- teen miles from Naples. Its situation must have been surpassingly fine, the luxuriant plains stretching off on two of its sides, the river Sarnus flowing through its midst, and the sea, loveliest of seas, near by with its caressing waters. Vesuvius was but five miles distant. The city, indeed, was built upon a bed of lava which the mountain in some remote age had poured forth. Yet the volcano had been quiet so long that no one feared it ; and as the posi- tion of the city offered unusual advan- tages to trade, as well as presented the highest attractions to culture and taste, it early became the resort of wealth and luxury. Although a Roman city, Pom-