Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/461

 *terns are the same, and the work equally good. The implements used today by dentists and doctors may also be seen among the relics from Pompeii. There is an ugly instrument known as the speculum, which may be seen in drug stores and doctors' offices; I have no doubt it was used too much three thousand or more years ago, for I saw one in the museum at Naples. It was found in the ruins of Pompeii, and it is exactly like the instrument used too much today I will mention another thing about Pompeii the general reader may not know. The Romans and Greeks who occupied the town were a dissolute, pleasure-loving lot, and they left many relics that are shown to men only. In the big museum at Naples, there is one room probably forty feet long, and half as wide. In it are preserved literally thousands of disreputable things found in Pompeii. They include statuary and pictures in mosaics. I heard a woman say lately that she despised Pompeii so much that she did not enjoy her visit to the place; probably her husband had told her what he saw in the Dirty Room, and she hated the people who formerly occupied the deserted houses and streets. The people are certainly improving in morals all the time; we are not as good as we should be now, but we are better in every respect than the ancients were. I often wonder that the ancients, who believed in so many gods, were not scared into better conduct Pompeii is reached by railroad train from Naples. If you take an express train, the twenty miles may be traveled in half an hour. Electric cars also run there, but they make many stops, and are much slower. When you are in Pompeii, you are near Vesuvius, the