A CITY UNDER THE GROUND.
Under the bright skies of Italy, in a picturesque valley, with the mountains close at hand and the blue waves of the Mediterranean rolling at a little distance—at the foot of wonderful Vesuvius, green and fertile, and covered with vines to its very top, from which smoke is perpetually escaping, and in whose heart fires are eternally raging, in this beautiful valley stands the city of Pompeii.
CLEARING OUT A NARROW STREET IN POMPEII.
You might, however, remain upon the spot a long time and never find out that there was a city there. All around you would see groves and vineyards, and cultivated fields and villas. For the city is beneath your feet. Under the vineyards and orchards are temples filled with statues, houses with furniture, pictures, and all homelike things. Nothing is wanting there but life. For Pompeii is a buried city, and fully two-thirds of it has not yet been excavated.
But a short walk from this place will bring you to the spot where excavations have been made, and about one-third of the ancient city lies once more under the light of heaven. It is doubtful whether you can see it when you get to it for the mounds of ashes and rubbish piled around. But, clambering over these, you will pay forty cents for admission, and pass through a turnstile into a street where you will see long rows of ruined houses, and empty shops, and broken temples, and niches which have contained statues of heathen gods and goddesses. As you wander about you will come across laborers busily employed in clearing away rubbish in obstructed streets. It is a very lively scene, as you can see in the picture. Men are digging zealously into the heaps of earth and rubbish, and filling baskets which the bare-footed peasant-girls carry to the cars at a little distance. A railroad has been built expressly to carry away the earth. The cars are drawn by mules. The girls prefer carrying their baskets on their heads. The men have to dig carefully, for there is no knowing when they may come across some rare and valuable work of art.
The excavations are conducted in this manner. Among the trees, and in the cultivated fields there can be traced little hillocks, which are pretty regular in form and size. These indicate the blocks of houses in the buried city, and, of course, the streets run between them. After the land is bought from the owners, these streets are carefully marked out, the vines are cleared away, the trees cut down, and the digging out of these streets is commenced from the top. The work is carried on pretty steadily at present, but it is only within the last few years that it has been conducted with any degree of enterprise and skill.
