Rollo in Naples

by Jacob Abbott

After riding on in this way two or three hours, the carriage stopped at a very pleasant place, among vineyards and mulberry groves, at the entrance of a pretty lane, which led to the gates of Pompeii.

"Now," said Rosie, "our difficulties are going to begin. I don't see how we are going to know where to look for Mr. George."

"We will see," said Mrs. Gray.

The coachman opened the door, and all the party got out. Just then they saw at a short distance before them, where there was a sort of gate, several men in a species of uniform, which denoted that they were the persons appointed by the government to take charge of the place, and to show it to visitors. One of these men, as soon as he saw the party, seemed to look very much pleased, and he advanced to meet them with a smiling face. At the same time he said something to a boy who was near by, and the boy ran off into the town. The young man in uniform, when he came near to Mrs. Gray, said something which at first she could not understand, but which she soon perceived was an attempt to pronounce the words, Il Signore Holiday.

"Ah! he has seen Mr. George," said Mrs. Gray. "Mr. George has been here, and has told him to watch for us."

This supposition on the part of Mrs. Gray was correct. Mr. George had come early with the students to Pompeii, in order to be ready there to receive Mrs. Gray and her party, and he had stationed this man at the gate to watch for them, with directions to send the boy in for him at an appointed place, as soon as they should arrive. The boy soon found Mr. George, and he came immediately back to the gate. Of course the whole party were very much pleased to see him.

"And yet," said Mrs. Gray, "Rollo has managed so well that I should not have felt any anxiety if we had continued under his sole charge all day."

The party now commenced their exploration of Pompeii. They found it, as they had expected, all open to the day. A great many of the streets, with all the houses bordering them, had been cleared, and all the sand and gravel under which they had been buried had been carted away. Immense heaps of this rubbish were lying outside the entrance, and the party had passed them in the carriage on their approach to the town. They had been lying there so long, however, that they were covered with grass and small trees, and they looked like great railroad embankments.

Indeed, the appearance which Pompeii presents now is that of a large open village of ruined and roofless one-storied houses. Many of the houses were originally two stories high, it is true; but the upper stories have been destroyed or shaken down, and in general it is the lower story only that now remains.

The structure of the houses, in respect to plan and general arrangement, is very different from that of the dwellings built in our towns at the present day. The chief reasons for the difference arise from the absence of windows and chimneys in the houses of the ancients, and of course the leaving out of windows and chimneys in a house makes it necessary to change every thing.