Well, when the landing was reached, the children had to lift their eyes to a height on top of a steep cliff wall before they could see the hotel in which the night was to be spent.
"I never in the world, Teddy Terry, can climb up there!" said puzzled little Polly. But Ted thought it would be real fun to climb it, and was quite disappointed when Papa pointed to a narrow railroad which ran up, up, up the cliff through a tunnel beginning not far from where they had left the boat. "It is called a 'funicular,' or, as the Italians call it, a 'funicolare,'" explained Papa, "and the little car we are to enter presently is drawn up to the top of the cliff by a cable, a strong wire rope, very thick and quite able to do its work safely, so you needn't look so frightened, little goosey," to Polly, for her eyes were full of anxious wonderment, and she took tight hold of her Father's hand.
"I'm not a bit frightened," declared Teddy, but I really think he was a tiny bit afraid, for he grasped the tail of Papa's coat pretty closely as they followed Mamma into the little car, which seemed to be standing almost on end, and looked as though at any moment it might roll backwards down the incline. However, they arrived in good condition at the top before long, and were able to rest themselves and by-and-by eat a good dinner in the fine hotel, which was located in the midst of a wonderful garden right there on top of the cliff. Next morning they visited the little shops where beautiful olive-wood articles were sold, and Papa bought a fine ruler for Ted, and a dainty little clothes-brush (both of carved olive-wood) for Polly.
Then it was time to drive to Pompeii, and after a long, rather dusty drive down the mountain road, they found themselves amongst the ruins of that ancient city at last. Of course such little folks as Polly and Teddy couldn't take quite as much interest in the old city as grown-up visitors were taking, but they were quick to observe everything especially interesting: the ruts in the paved streets worn deeply by the wheels of the chariots used in those days (something like the chariots you have seen, no doubt, when Barnum's big circus comes along, and all little folks go to see it, of course); the big flat stepping-stones in the streets, which were placed there so that people could have a clean, dry, and raised crossing from one side to the other (very nice for rainy, muddy weather, wasn't it?); the bake ovens where loaves of bread were baking at the very moment the flood of hot cinders and lava came thickly down upon the city and destroyed it so suddenly and so soon; the old drinking-fountains still bearing the worn impressions and dents made by the hands which used to rest upon the fountain basins so long ago. Papa explained that according to history the city was seven hundred years old when destroyed, and it lay over a thousand years under twenty feet of ashes. You see, the ashes cooled, and the lava hardened, and there was no sign of any city there till all those many years had passed, and then by accident, history tells us, it was discovered that there was a city away down under all that earth (grass had grown over it in all that long time, and it looked like meadows). Then people set to work digging, and lo and behold! uncovered so much of it that everybody flocked to see it. So that is how Polly and Teddy at last got there, and people are still digging away, clearing more and more of the big city from the earth over it.
Papa made it all very interesting to our little couple (and when they got home what did Teddy do but bury away down deep in his garden, in the deepest hole he could dig with his little spade, a whole toy village of Polly's, and cover it up, and pound the earth and grass over it again, and by-and-by play he was "discovering Pompeii" and set to work to excavate the little city again).
CHAPTER X.
BACK TO NAPLES, AND "HOMEWARD BOUND."
WELL, after they had seen Pompeii, and looked at the curiosities in the little museum of the office and station building near by, our little couple felt very tired, and begged Papa to take them home.