BEARING PANNIERS OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES.
This ancient city of probably only twenty-five thousand inhabitants had improvements that we now designate as modern. The streets, just wide enough for one wagon track with narrow footways on each side, were paved with square flat stones in which the chariots had cut deep wheel ruts. The public baths had separate rooms for men and women, exercise courts, sweating rooms, furnace heat, hot baths, cold baths, capacious marble plunge tanks, and cooling rooms in which the bathers, cleansed, oiled, and perfumed, could rest after the bath. The water supply was distributed through the city in the same manner as in our own cities. Lead water pipes conducted the water through streets and into buildings. Bronze stopcocks governed the fountains, and bronze inlets and outlets regulated the supply at the marble baths.
"The Pompeian plumbers used good material and did good work," commented a manufacturer after examining the plumbing.
"If I could produce paints that would endure for centuries, and have them laid on as the Pompeian artists applied them, my fortune would soon be made," remarked another, who had been impressed particularly by the brightness of the red and blue on the walls of the House of Sallust. "But," he added, "the secret of making paint that will endure the ravages of time has been lost."
In a baker's shop we saw four small stone mills in which grain had been converted to flour by hand power, the stones having been revolved by means of long wooden handles. Near the mills was an oven similar to those of the present time.
"In this oven a number of loaves of bread were found," said the guide.
"Yes," answered one of our party, "we saw fourteen loaves in the Museum of Naples yesterday and were told that it was the oldest bread in existence. The loaves were well preserved in form but were as black as charcoal."
MADE A PICTURE THAT PLEASED THE ARTIST.