ashes, stones, and lava, and, after a while, should be dug out and uncovered, and should be found with the roofs all broken in, the windows and doors gone or shattered, and the walls standing, with the stone fronts and fine columns, in many cases, uninjured. Something as one feels when he walks though a street the houses on both sides of which have been shaken down by a tornado, or swept by an extensive conflagration, leaving nothing but rocks and ruins, tenantless walls and crumbling remains, does he feel when pursuing his way through the streets of Pompeii. He does not wish to speak; the spirits of the past seem to be around him; he converses with forgotten ages, and leaves the spot saying, "I have seen a vision." Again and again does he turn back, gazing first on the destroyer, and then on the destroyed. Fancy again rebuilds the city, makes it active with life, and vocal with pleasure and industry. The Temple of Isis, of Jupiter, of Venus, the Forum, the Amphitheater, the houses of the noble citizens, are all as they were ere the terrible overthrow. He looks upon the mountain, which, while he gazes, becomes agitated and troubled. Down its sides flow torrents of lava; from its summit, around which shadows and specters dance, pour the shower of ashes and the tides of boiling water which fall on the city below. Consternation seizes the people. One loud, mighty cry "To the sea! to the sea!" arises from priest and poet, gladiator and senator; and out they sweep, masters and slaves, leaving behind them houses and lands, and, in many cases, sick and aged friends. Still he gazes; but the people are gone, the mountain is quiet, and nought remains of Pompeii but forty acres of ruins, and a vast pile of sepulchers, which are covered with the dust of eighteen centuries.

CC

The articles of household furniture, and such like, are deposited in the Museum at Naples, and are rich in their variety. The building itself is a magnificent one, and its contents are all interesting as antiquities. We passed through some fifteen or twenty rooms and galleries, each one devoted to some particular collection of relics. Here are the rooms for mosaics and frescoes, filled with well-preserved paintings of men, birds, beasts, reptiles, graces, sibyls, angels, and devils which have been found in the exhumed houses; the statuary rooms, eloquent with the stately forms of kings, warriors, priests, and senators; the Egyptian rooms, with many a curious thing from the land of the Pharaohs, such as mummies, male and female, in the different stages of unrollment; the jewelry rooms, where are rings, pins, cameos, of all sizes, and of immense value, taken from the limbs of the skeletons found in the cities which Vesuvius destroyed; the room for cooking utensils, of all kinds, from a tin pot to a cook stove; and so on, to the end of the catalogue. Time would fail to describe the objects of interest which, after the burial of centuries, are here classified and arranged, to the amazement of all who visit the place. Here is the petrified body of Diomede; a statue found in the Temple of Isis; an alabaster jar of fragrant balsam, nearly two thousand years old, in a tolerable state of preservation, as it was taken from an apothecary shop; chandeliers from the house of Diomede; the ancient stocks in which the two skeletons were found made fast; the skull of the sentinel, in his rusty armor, as he was found at the gate, on duty still in death. Besides these, we saw eggs, meat, soup, bread, fruit of various kinds, so wonderfully preserved, that none could mis take them.

What new wonders will be discovered, what other skeletons will yet be found, what new revelations will yet be made, none can tell; but doubtless, as street after street and building after building are uncovered, new developments will be made, and new light thrown upon the dark history of the past. The articles already disinterred teach us the perfection to which the arts were carried by the ancients, and show us a remarkable similarity in many of the household utensils of the past and the present times. I regard the day spent in visiting Pompeii, and the night previous, which was employed in climbing the sides of Vesuvius, as the most remarkable of my whole tour. The scenes witnessed are the greenest and freshest in my remembrance, and doubtless will be the last which will be obliterated from my memory. I seem still to walk the streets of Pompeii, and gaze upon the relics of the past.

XXVII.

VESUVIUS, THE DESTROYER.

THIS mountain is thirty-six hundred and eighty feet high, and for ages has been the scene of violent convulsions, which have increased in frequency with the lapse of time. The first of which we have any authentic account is that which buried Herculaneum and Pompeii. This was followed by other and less destructive eruptions in 203, 472, 512, 685, 993, 1036, 1306, 1631, 1730, 1766, 1779, 1794, and more frequently during the present century. Some of these have been very violent and destructive, and have carried terror through all the towns and cities which lie scattered around its base. That of 1794 shook down and overwhelmed the houses of Torre del Greco, a town of some twenty thousand inhabitants; that of 1822 sent forth such showers of ashes, that they were flying for more than a hundred miles, and the sun was darkened at noonday the region round about. Almost every year, the mountain shows some fearful signs and utters its terrific anathemas.

We set off to visit it, one night, about midnight. As we took our places in the carriage, a fine balloon, splendidly illuminated, ascended from a distant part of the city, like a globe of fire burning over our heads a while, and was finally lost in the clouds. It was sent up in honor of some saint; but we enjoyed it as much, as we rode along, as if it were a tribute of

respect to our worthy selves. We drove as far as Portici, where we exchanged our carriage for horses. T had never rode horseback an hour in my life; and the idea of climbing up the side of the mountain in this way did not please me. However, the gentle horse was given to me, and I mounted with some forebodings. Neither of us could boast of horses; for five such looking creatures are seldom brought together; but as they were the best we could get, we started in singular file, Joseph leading off. We had driven out about a quarter of a mile, when the animal I rode, without cause or provocation, in as fine a street as ever was, plunged headlong upon the pavements, sending me sprawling upon the stones, to the great amusement of my companions. I succeeded in getting up myself, with a bruised knee and an aching head; but my horse, gentle creature, waited to be helped up. We finally got him upon his feet, when I persisted in exchanging with the guide, who was riding a nice little. creature, and which, after a deal of scolding, he gave up. I mounted, and found my condition vastly improved; and we again set forth. For some time, the ascent was gradual, the road winding and wide, passing along by cultivated fields and rich orchards; but as we approached the mountain, these evidences of fertility were exchanged for a state of indescribable barrenness. The beds and fields of lava, now spread out as if leveled by the hand of man, and anon rising in dark red walls on every side, cast a dreary gloom over the whole prospect; and we were glad to stop, now and then, to gaze down upon the beautiful spectacle below, which stretched itself from the foot of the mountain to the shores of the Bay of Naples. Still on we went, by the Hermitage and the Observatory, up into more desolate