I went, in the commodore’s suite, to call upon the governor this morning. He is a military, commanding-looking man, and received us in Napoleon’s saloon, surrounded by his officers. He regretted that his commission did not permit him to leave the shore, even to visit a ship, but offered a visit on the part of his sister, and a company of the first ladies of the town. They came off this morning. She was a lady-like woman, not very pretty, of thirty years perhaps. As she spoke only Italian, she was handed over to me, and I waited on her through the ship, explaining a great many things of which I knew as much as herself. This visit over, we get under way to-morrow morning for Naples.
LETTER II.
Visit to Naples, Herculaneum, and Pompeii.
I have passed my first day in Naples in wandering about, without any definite object. I have walked around its famous bay, looked at the lazzaroni, watched the smoke of Vesuvius, traversed the square where the young Conradine was beheaded and Masaniello commenced his revolt, mounted to the castle of St. Elmo, and dined on macaroni in a trattoria, where the Italian I had learned in Tuscany was of little more use to me than Greek.
The bay surprised me most. It is a collection of beauties, which seems more a miracle than an accident of nature. It is a deep crescent of sixteen miles across, and a little more in length, between the points of which lies a chain of low mountains, called the island of Capri, looking, from the shore, like a vast heap of clouds brooding at sea. In the bosom of the crescent lies Naples. Its palaces and principal buildings cluster around the base of an abrupt hill crowned by the castle of St. Elmo, and its half million of inhabitants have stretched their dwellings over the plain towards Vesuvius, and back upon Posilipo, bordering the curve of the shore on the right and left, with a broad white band of city and village for twelve or fourteen miles. Back from this, on the southern side, a very gradual ascent brings your eye to the base of Vesuvius, which rises from the plain in a sharp cone, broken in at the top, its black and lava-streaked sides descending with the evenness of a sand-hill, on one side to the disinterred city of Pompeii, and on the other to the royal palace of Portici, built over the yet unexplored Herculaneum. In the centre of the crescent of the shore projecting into the sea by a bridge of two or three hundred feet in length, stands a small castle built upon a rock, on one side of which lies the mole with its shipping. The other side is bordered, close to the beach, with the gardens of the royal villa, a magnificent promenade of a mile, ornamented with fancy temples and statuary, on the smooth alleys of which may be met, at certain hours, all that is brilliant and gay in Naples. Farther on, toward the northern horn of the bay, lies the mount of Posilipo, the ancient coast of Baiæ, Cape Mysene, and the mountain isles of Procida and Ischia, the last of which still preserves the costumes of Greece, from which it was colonised centuries ago. The bay itself is as blue as the sky, scarcely ruffled all day with the wind, and covered by countless boats fishing or creeping on with their picturesque lateen sails just filled: while the atmosphere over sea, city, and mountain, is of a clearness and brilliancy which is inconceivable in other countries. The superiority of the sky and climate of Italy is no fable in any part of this delicious land—but in Naples, if the day I have spent here is a fair specimen, it is matchless even for Italy. There is something like a fine blue veil of a most dazzling transparency over the mountains around, but above and between there seems nothing but viewless space—nothing like air that a bird could rise upon. The eye gets intoxicated almost with gazing on it.
We have just returned from our first excursion to Pompeii. It lies on the southern side of the bay, just below the volcano which overwhelmed it, about twelve miles from Naples. The road lay along the shore, and is lined with villages, which are only separated by name. The first is Portici, where the king has a summer palace, through the court of which the road passes. It is built over Herculaneum, and the danger of undermining it has stopped the excavations of unquestionably the richest city buried by Vesuvius. We stopped at a little gate in the midst of the village, and taking a guide and two torches, descended to the only part of it now visible, by near a hundred steps. We found ourselves at the back of an amphitheatre. We entered the narrow passage, and the guide pointed to several of the upper seats for the spectators which had been partially dug out. They were lined with marble, as the whole amphitheatre appears to have been. To realise the effect of these ruins, it is to be remembered that they are imbedded in solid lava, like rock, near a hundred feet deep, and that the city, which is itself ancient, is built above them. The carriage in which we came, stood high over our heads, in a time-worn street, and ages had passed and many generations of men had lived and died over a splendid city, whose very name had been forgotten! It was discovered in sinking a well, which struck the door of the amphitheatre. The guide took us through several other long passages, dug across and around it, showing us the orchestra, the stage, the numerous entrances, and the bases of several statues which are taken to the museum at Naples. This is the only part of the excavation that remains open, the others having again been filled with rubbish. The noise of the carriages overhead in the streets of Portici was like a deafening thunder.
In a hurry to get to Pompeii, which is much more interesting, we ascended to daylight, and drove on. Coasting along the curve of the bay, with only a succession of villas and gardens between us and the beach, we soon came to Torre del Greco, a small town which was overwhelmed by an eruption thirty-nine years ago. Vesuvius here rises gradually on the left, the crater being at a distance of five miles. The road crossed the bed of dry lava, which extends to the sea in a broad, black mass of cinders, giving the country the most desolate aspect. The town is rebuilt just beyond the ashes, and the streets are crowded with the thoughtless inhabitants, who buy and sell, and lounge in the sun, with no more remembrance or fear of the volcano, than the people of a city in America.