“By half-past ten we were at the railway station, just outside the gates of Naples, and immediately started for Pompeii. The line of rail continues along the shore of the bay; nothing can exceed the bustle, confusion, and want of system on this amusing road. There exists neither distinction of classes nor limitation of luggage, so that fruit-stalls and puppet-shows—Polichinello, by the way, is here in his native land—are heaped together in the carriages. The first station we reached was Portici, the next Resina, accompanied by the classic cry of Ercolano—signore, Porta d’Ercolano—then Torre del Greco, where heaps of lava piled one upon the other, attest the awful eruption of the last century. Torre dell’ Annunciata being the nearest station to Pompeii we alighted here, and proceeded along a dusty road, lined with cactus, poplar, stone pine, and the castor-oil tree. Festoons of the richest vines hung from tree to tree, and the black clusters peeped out beneath the broad-spread leaves, already beginning to change into the gold of the approaching Autumn. The fields were teeming with corn, hemp, and cotton. No beggars, the pest of Naples, crowded round our carratella, and the dust which rolled in dense clouds was our only annoyance. We now turned our thoughts to Pompeii. A small guard house of soldiers marked the entrance to these classic precincts, and for some distance further the road was planted with willows, producing a rich and solemn effect, and well preparing us for the street of tombs which soon broke upon our view. The road was lined with tombs for a considerable distance before we approached the city gate, called Porta d’Ercolano, on the Herculaneum side; but previously to examining the tombs, we diverged to the right to explore the villa of Diomed, where we found everything in exact accordance with the description of Sir William Gell and Mr. Malkin’s work, ‘Pompeii,’ by the Society of Entertaining Knowledge.
“The tombs are all small but minutely ornamented, the upper parts still remain, and they appear altogether much more complete than I had expected. The gate of Herculaneum, with its grooves, sentry box, and road-pavements, corresponds exactly with prints and descriptions given by numerous travellers.
“At this point of view, little is really wanting. The eye pursues a long line of ascending road, with tombs and thick trees on each side, broken only by the gate of the city, through the arch of which a long continuation of houses is clearly visible. We entered the city; everything is on a small scale, but the walls at this entrance to the city seem high in proportion; the footway and carriage-road remain undisturbed, and still retain the track of chariot wheels. The motion and noise of inhabitants alone seem wanting—no decay is visible, and the impression produced by the scene was that of a populous city during church time. We wandered on through streets and lanes, prying into buildings both public and private, after the manner of that wonderful prince mentioned in the ‘Arabian Nights Entertainments,’ who explored a city, the inhabitants of which had been turned into stone.
“In the shops, many of the walls remain perfect, roofs alone have disappeared, but counters, doorways, and depositaries are just such as we see daily at Naples, and scarcely inferior in point of freshness.
“The mosaic strewn floors are wonderfully perfect—a little patching and inequality of level caused by the previous earthquake are here and there perceptible; the chief difficulty at first is to know the floor from the pavement, that is, to distinguish the inside of a house from the courtyard. All external walls were plastered and coloured, so that a mistake might easily arise.
“The Houses of the Quæstor, Sallust, and the Faun, are exquisite specimens of proportion and arrangement in domestic building. The beautifully painted walls, columns, and inlaid marble or mosaic floor, combine with the deep blue sky, forming so glorious a whole that the rooflessness is forgotten, and the eye reposes with delight on the assembled harmonies.
“The whole city is encompassed by enormous mounds of debris, under which it was formerly buried. These lumps are now caked together, and in their sloping sides trees have already sprung up, so that all appearance of rubbish is fortunately concealed.
“I was greatly disappointed with the scale of many objects, especially the Baths. Sir William Gell’s views are very correct, but the living figures introduced are on an utterly false scale. The Telamons, a series of terra-cotta figures, tinted red, with yellow hair and drapery, supporting the frieze, seem, in his pictures, the size of life, whereas they are only two feet high, one-third in fact of the size they are made to appear in his drawings.
“Modern roofs are extended over all parts retaining ornament, stucco, or paintings; some of the finest mosaics are carefully boarded over—the famous lion, for instance—whilst others are protected by coarse glass frames with slides such as we use for cucumber-beds in kitchen gardens. A beautiful marble pavement attracted our attention, in the house of Actæon or Sallust, but the great mosaic of Darius is not visible, being plastered over preparatory to its removal to Naples. The borders alone remain uncovered. The Forum, with its Basilica, temples of Jupiter, Vesta, and Venus, are only realisations of my previous conception, allowing, as before, for the reduction of size. The best mosaics, paintings, statues and bronzes have been removed to Naples, but their place is frequently supplied by copies, which serve equally well to illustrate their effect.
“The tragic theatre is complete in form; the stone seats, however, have nearly all disappeared. The amphitheatre is considerably distant from the rest of the excavations; it is remarkably perfect, and the view of Vesuvius from the summit of this building is surprisingly grand. It contrasts strangely with the beautiful limestone range of mountains on the other side of the bay. Vesuvius appears more rugged and frowning in this aspect—beheld from the remains of its victim—than from the more-frequently painted scene, the Chiaja of Naples. The deep blue and gray-brown of the volcano is studded with white dots, each of which is a villa or hermitage, creeping up to the mouth of the crater, regardless of the warnings of the buried cities, and the devastation at its roots in Torre del Greco, and in Nola of the plain beyond. They seem like flies settled on the head of a sleeping monster, or, to speak in better phrase, like white sails on the calm and azure sea, which, at the moment I am writing, seems incapable of harbouring the terrors and destruction which mankind so frequently experience, and which two days ago we saw in all their sublimity.