Pompeii, the City of the Dead.—The Monuments of the Past.—Temples, Towers, and Palaces.—Tombs and Monuments.—Theatres and Amphitheatres.—Streets and Squares.

A few days after their ascent of Vesuvius, the whole party started off to visit Pompeii. The prospect of this journey gave them unusual delight. Bob had now completely recovered his health and spirits. Clive's poetic interest in so renowned a place was roused to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. David's classical taste was stimulated. Frank's healthy love of sight-seeing was excited by the thought of a place that so far surpassed all others in interest; and Uncle Moses evidently considered that this was the one thing in Europe which could repay the traveller for the fatigues of a pilgrimage. Thus each, in his own way, felt his inmost heart stirred within him as they approached the disentombed city; and at length, when they reached the entrance to the place, it is difficult to say which one felt the strongest excitement.

They found a number of other visitors there, consisting of representatives of all nations—Russians, Germans, Americans, French, and English; ladies, gentlemen, and boys. Michael Angelo was with them, and was more useful to them than any mere guide-book could have been.

The first emotions of awe which filled their minds as they entered the streets of the mysterious city gradually faded away, and they began to examine everything with great interest. The first thing that struck their attention was the extreme narrowness of the streets. There was only room for one carriage to pass at a time. The sidewalks were a foot higher than the carriage-way. There were crossing-stones that stood high above the pavement. The sidewalks were paved with brick, and the carriage-way with lava blocks, which were very neatly joined together. Clive took a piece of brick as a relic, and David broke off a fragment from one of the crossing-stones for the same purpose.

They soon came to a ruined edifice, which Michael Angelo called the Basilica. It was two hundred feet in length, and seventy in width. At one end still remained the Tribunal or Seat of Justice, seven feet above the pavement; and all around the walls were columns formed of brick, covered with plaster. The boys picked off some of the plaster as relics.

Leaving this, they went on and came to another ruined edifice, which Michael Angelo called the Temple of Venus. It was built round a courtyard, with porticos. Here David and Clive obtained some more relics.

Beyond this was an open square surrounded by pillars, of which only the lower parts remained. This was the Forum Civile; and beyond this stood the Temple of Jupiter, which they visited without finding anything that was particularly interesting. After this Michael Angelo took them to a place which he said was the Public Bakery. Here they saw millstones, ovens, water-vessels, and some other articles of which they could not guess the use. Not far away were some bakers' shops. In these shops loaves of bread were found by the diggers. Of course they were burned to charcoal; but they retained their original shape, and showed marks upon them which were probably intended to indicate the bakery from which they came. Heaps of corn were also found.

Going down the street where these were situated, they came to one of the gates of the city. Beside this was a niche in the wall, used as a sentry-box, upon which, all the party gazed with a profound interest; for in that sentry-box those who disentombed the city found a skeleton, in the armor and with the equipment of a Roman soldier. Evidently the sentry had died at his post.

They took a good look at the walls here, which they found to be about twenty-five feet high, and formed of huge stones, that were joined together without cement. The gates had evidently been double.

Passing through this gate, they found themselves outside the city, in what Michael Angelo called the "Street of Tombs." Looking down it, they noticed a number of edifices of a monumental character, lining it on either side. These were the tombs of wealthy citizens. They visited several of them, and found them all alike. The interiors were all simple, the walls being pierced with niches, in which were deposited the urns that held the ashes of the dead. This was the first time that they had seen anything of this kind, and they examined it with deep and solemn interest. Here, too, Clive and David succeeded in finding some relics in the shape of some burnt fragments of human bones.

After this Michael Angelo led them to what was once the finest mansion of the city, now known as the Villa of Diomede. They entered here, and wandered through the halls, and rooms, and courtyards. They saw rich mosaic pavements; the basins of what once were fountains; the lower parts of marble pillars that once belonged to stately colonnades. They saw some rooms that once had been used for cold baths, and others that had been used for vapor baths. Dining-rooms, reception-rooms, bed-rooms, kitchens, libraries, opened up all around, and told them of that vanished past which had once peopled all these apartments with busy human life. Far more than basilicas, or temples, or streets, or walls, were they affected by this glimpse into the home of a household; and they traversed that deserted home in eloquent silence. After going through all the house, they descended into the cellars. These were very spacious, and extended beneath the entire villa. Here, at one end, they saw what is called the Wine Cellar. Many wine jars were standing there—huge earthen vessels, as large as a hogshead, with wide mouths and round bottoms, which made it impossible for them to stand erect, unless they were placed against some support. In these wine jars there was now no wine, however, but only dust and ashes.

Here Michael Angelo had much to tell them.

He told them that several skeletons had been found in these vaults, belonging to hapless wretches who had, no doubt, fled here to escape the storm of ashes which was raging above. One of these skeletons had a bunch of keys in its bony fingers; and this circumstance led some to suppose that it was the skeleton of Diomede himself; but others thought that it belonged to his steward. Whoever he was, he had fled here only to meet his doom, and to leave his bones as a memorial to ages in the far distant future.

Leaving this place, they visited another house, which is called the Villa of Caius Sallust. At one corner of the house they saw something which at once struck them all as being rather singular. It was nothing else than a shop, small in size, fitted up with shelves and counters; a row of jars was fixed on one side, and in the rear were furnaces. Michael Angelo informed them that it had once been an eating-house. The boys thought it excessively odd that the occupants of such a house—people, too, who bore such a name as Sallust—should tolerate such an establishment; but there was the undeniable fact before their eyes. Afterwards their surprises diminished; For in many other houses in Pompeii—they found shops of the same kind, and saw that the ancient Pompeians were not above trade; and that, if they did not keep the shops themselves, they were at least very willing to hire the fronts of their houses to other parties who did wish to do so. In Sallust's house they saw the traces of very elegant ornaments, and learned from Michael Angelo that many of the articles discovered here showed that it must once have been the abode of a luxurious and refined family.

The elegant house of the Dioscuri was visited next. It is in the Via dei Mercurii, and is a very interesting and extensive ruin, and contains some handsome fresco paintings. After this they visited many other houses, a description of which is not necessary; they were all like the Villa of Diomede, though less interesting; and among them all there was the same general character. In all these only the lower stories remained, though in a few a small part of the second story was visible.

As the chief part of the Pompeian house was on the ground floor, the loss of the upper story did not make any particular difference. Among these they found another temple, called the Pantheon—a large edifice, which showed signs of great former beauty. It was two Hundred and thirty feet long, and nearly two hundred feet wide. An altar is still standing, around which are twelve pedestals, upon which once stood twelve statues. A few houses and temples followed, after which Michael Angelo informed them that he was about to take them to one of the greatest curiosities in the city.

The building to which he led them was in much better preservation than the majority of the edifices in Pompeii, though not nearly so large as many that they had seen. It was about sixty feet wide, and a little longer, being nearly square in shape, and was evidently a temple of some kind.

"What is this?" asked David.

"This is the Temple of Isis," said Michael Angelo.

"The Temple of Isis!" exclaimed David, in eager excitement. "Is it, indeed!" and he looked around with a face full of intense interest. Hitherto, though all the boys had shown much interest, yet, David had surpassed them all in his enthusiasm. This was partly on account of his taste for classical studies, and his love for all connected with classical antiquity, but more especially from the fact that he had very recently read Bulwer's Last Days of Pompeii; and on this occasion that whole story, with all its descriptions and all its incidents, was brought vividly before him by the surrounding scene. Most of all was the Temple of Isis associated with that story, and it seemed more familiar to him than anything else that he had found in the city. Glaucus and Ione, the Christian Olynthus, and the dark Arbaces seemed to haunt the place. In one of the chambers of this very temple, as Michael Angelo was now telling,—even while leading the way to that chamber,—had been found a huge skeleton, with an axe beside it; two walls had been beaten through by that axe, but the desperate fugitive could go no farther. In another part of the city had been found, another skeleton, carrying a bag of Coins and some ornaments of this Temple of Isis. David listened to Michael Angelo's account with strange interest, for it seemed to him as though the fabled characters of Bulwer's story were endowed with actual reality by Michael Angelo's prosaic statements.

After inspecting the chamber just mentioned, they were taken to a place where they saw what had once been the pedestal of a statue. Here Michael Angelo showed them a hollow niche, which was so contrived that one might conceal himself there, and speak words which the ignorant and superstitious populace might believe to come from the idol's own stony lips. This one thing showed the full depth of ancient ignorance and superstition; and over this Michael Angelo waxed quite eloquent, and proceeded to deliver himself of a number of impressive sentences of a highly important character, which he uttered with that fluent volubility peculiar to the whole race of guides, ciceroni, and showmen, in all parts of the world. These moral maxims were part of Michael Angelo's regular routine, and the moment that he found himself here in this Temple of Isis, the stream of wisdom would always begin to flow.

The next place to which Michael Angelo intended to take them was the amphitheatre, which could be seen from where they were standing. All this time David had been more eager than any of the others, and far more profoundly moved. He felt his soul stirred to its inmost depth by the thrilling scenes through which he had been moving. It seemed to him as though there were revealed here to his eyes, in one glance, all that he had been laboriously acquiring from books by the study of years. But this was better than books. These Roman houses, into which he could walk, were far better than any number of plans or engraved prints, however accurately done. These temples afforded an insight into the old pagan religion better far than volumes of description. These streets, and shops, and public squares, and wall, and gates, and tombs, all gave him an insight into the departed Roman civilization that was far fresher, and more vivid, and more profound, than any that he had ever gained before. It seemed to him that one day was too small for such a place. He must come again and again, he thought. He was unwilling to go on with the rest, but lingered longer than any over each spot, and was always the last to quit any place which they visited.

They stopped on their way at the Tragic and Comic Theatres, and at length reached the Amphitheatre itself. This edifice is by far the largest in the city, and is better preserved than any. It is built of large blocks of a dark volcanic stone, and constructed in that massive style which the Romans lived, and of which they have left the best examples in these huge amphitheatres. As this Amphitheatre now stands, it might still serve for one of those displays for which it was built. Tier after tier those seats arise, which once had accommodations for fifteen or twenty thousand human beings. On these, it is said, the Pompeians were seated when that awful volcanic storm burst forth by which the city was rained. Down from these seats they fled in wildest disorder, all panic-stricken, rushing down the steps, and crowding through the doorways, trampling one another under foot, in that mad race for life; while overhead the storm gathered darker and darker, and the showers of ashes fell, and the suffocating sulphuric vapors arose, and amid the volcanic storm the lightnings of the sky flashed forth, illuminating all the surrounding gloom with a horrid lustre, and blending with the subterranean rumblings of the earthquake the thunder of the upper air.

From this cause the Amphitheatre may be considered the central spot of interest in Pompeii. What little has been told of the fate of the city gathers around this place, and to him who sits upon those seats there is a more vivid realization of that awful scene than can be obtained anywhere else.

On reaching the Amphitheatre they seated themselves on the stone steps, about half way up the circle of seats, and each one gave way to the feelings that filled him. They had walked now for hours, and all of them felt somewhat wearied, so that the rest on these seats was grateful. Here they sat and rested.