Twenty years around the world

by John Guy Vassar

On arriving at the gate we were conducted by a guide through part of the town, already excavated. The streets are straight and well paved with lava, which prove an eruption previous to the destruction of the city. Traces of carriage wheels still remain in the pave. The houses were generally two stories high, and had flat roofs. The walls of most of the rooms were stuccoed, painted and polished; many of the paintings and frescoes are in a good state of preservation. The apartments were paved with mosaic, some very magnificently executed. On many houses are seen the name and occupation of the owner, written in deep red; on the walls of some public buildings advertisements of gladiatorial shows, festivals, &c.

Here are seen remnants of public baths, theatres, amphitheatres, the Basilica, the houses of Sallust, Diomede, the temples of Isis, Hercules, and other gods.

We also visited Herculaneum, which lies about five miles from Naples. Some portions of the city were buried six feet deep, others one hundred feet. The towers of Resina and Portici are built over the city, which prevents much excavation. We descended by torchlight a narrow and winding staircase a considerable depth below the surface, where part of the theatre is exhibited. It is said that it was capable of containing ten thousand persons. After having visited most of the objects of antiquity in the city, I made an excursion along the coast, visiting the tomb of Virgil, and passing through the grotto of Posilippo, which is two thousand three hundred and sixty feet long, twenty-three feet broad, and eighty-nine feet high, to the small town of Pozzuoli, where St. Paul landed and remained seven days before commencing his journey to Rome. I also visited the ruins of the ancient city of Baiæ, near which are the ruins of Nero’s villa, and the hot vapor baths, which will boil an egg in two minutes. One of my most interesting excursions was to the ruins of Pæstum, about forty miles from Naples. The disease called malaria, which exists to an alarming extent in the vicinity of this ruined city, prevents travellers from visiting it at all seasons of the year. Persons should not sleep there, nor approach until an hour after sunrise. We took our supplies with us, as nothing can be obtained in this land of solitude and silence. Our sympathies were excited and charity exercised by seeing many squalid and wretched objects of malaria lying in huts upon the bare ground. This city was supposed to have been built seven hundred and twenty years before Christ, and to have been destroyed in the tenth century by the Saracens. Here are some of the finest ruins of temples in Europe. One, called the temple of Neptune, is very majestic. Its shape is quadrilateral, length one hundred and ninety-four feet, and breadth seventy-eight feet; and it has two fronts, with six minute fluted columns of the Grecian Doric order. The exterior columns, thirty-six in number, are twenty-seven feet high, and there is a Doric frieze and cornice all round the building. The situation of the high altar, and those on which victims were sacrificed and offerings made, is still visible. Fragments of sea-green and dark blue mosaic are still found on the spot. The temple of Ceres and the Basilica are still quite perfect and very beautiful. On our return through this gloomy tract of country and pestilent swamps we saw herds of buffalo, which are the only animals that inhabit it. I next visited the towns of Salerno and Amalfi, situated along the shores of the Mediterranean. The latter is bounded by lofty mountains on three sides, with beautiful cascades running through the town. The front opens on the sea. On the summit of a lofty wall is the Capuchin convent, which we visited, and then crossed the mountain of St. Angelo, over a height of four or five thousand feet. The route was difficult, but we were compensated for the fatigue by the many picturesque scenes constantly presented. At times the ascent was so rough among the craggy rocks I was compelled to dismount my donkey; at other times he would wind his course along the brink of a frightful precipice, where one mis-step would launch me into eternity. He proved as sure-footed as the herds of goats we frequently passed, jumping from one crag to another on the verge of a precipice.

I left Naples by steamer, stopping at Tropea, in Calabria, for a short time; then, passing down through the straits of Messina, we saw Scylla and Charybdis, which have been the dread of mariners so long, and about which so much has been said and sung. It is said that during tempestuous gales, the noise of the waves dashing violently against Scylla, and then precipitating themselves in the cavern, still resembles the howl of dogs and beasts of prey. The rapidity of the current here is very great, and the boiling eddies very strong. On passing the mountain of Stromboli, not far distant from Scylla, situated in the sea, I was struck with the beautiful eruption and ejection of fire, smoke, and red-hot stones, thrown up at intervals of fifteen minutes—a beautiful sight in the night.

X.

Catania, Sicily, March 27, 1841.

I wrote you at Messina on the 10th inst. That city is delightfully situated, partly on an eminence and partly on a plain, surrounded by a luxuriant country, abounding with oranges, lemons, and many other tropical fruits. The population was, at one time, eighty thousand, but it is now somewhat reduced. It is said that the plague of 1743 carried off fifty thousand of its inhabitants, and the earthquake of 1783 nearly destroyed its beautiful quays in a few minutes, levelled its finest buildings, and killed one thousand persons. The city, as now rebuilt, has magnificent quays and a very pretty harbor. The walls of the present buildings are very massive, and usually from two to three stories high, to resist the shocks of earthquakes, which they are still subject to. I omitted to state in my last that I had experienced one slight shock since I had been in this latitude.

After remaining a sufficiently long time at Messina to see all the objects of interest, and its beautiful sunrises, I took a steamer for the city of Palermo, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles. The approach to the city presents fine scenery. The mountains which form the background, the deep blue sea, whence rise the most picturesque rocks imaginable, the luxuriant plains immediately surrounding the city, altogether, are peculiarly striking. The city has a gay and Asiatic appearance, and the architecture is of the Saracenic, Greek, and Roman styles. It is one of the most regular built cities I have yet seen, and has a population of two hundred thousand. The Strada Toledo, which is about a mile in length, wide, clean, and well paved, intersects another street of the same character at right angles, and leads into a handsome octangular piazza called Quatro Cantori, from the centre of which both parts of each street and the four principal gates of the city, are visible. The number of nunneries is immense. The basements of these—many of them in the principal streets—are occupied as shops, while the upper stories are the apartments of the nuns, as may be discovered by the long, grated, projecting galleries.

The church of the Capuchins, about a mile distant from the city, attracts the attention of travellers. Here we descended into an immense vault, about one hundred and fifty feet in length, and probably sixty in width, which is used as a depository for the defunct brethren. They are dried, dressed, and placed upright in railings against the wall, that their friends may visit and pray by them annually, on the second of November. These catacombs also contain the vaults with iron doors where the body is placed and dried for six months; at the end of which time it is clad in its usual habiliments, and placed with the general assembly. The floors are covered with coffins inclosing the remains of persons not in holy orders. In one coffin I saw the late viceroy, who had been embalmed seven months, and was in good preservation. In one apartment are shelves devoted to females, who are disposed of in glass cases, and are richly dressed, and decorated with ornaments. This apartment must contain several thousands. The atmosphere is not altogether agreeable, and the grim-visaged defunct monks contribute not a little to make the sight appalling and disgusting.

Having finished our observations with the dead, we next visited the palace of the king, which is rich in marbles, mosaics, fresco paintings, tapestry, &c., and then made an excursion to the Chinese villa, called “La Favorita,” the summer residence of the king of Naples and Sicily, while at Palermo. The grounds are beautiful, inclosing splendid drives, four miles in extent, embellished with fountains, thickets, labyrinths, all varieties of tropical fruits, &c. The palace is purely Chinese in construction, in furniture, and in decorations.