Signor Fiorelli, the Italian engineer who supervises the excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii, claims that Pompeii did not contain more than 12,000 inhabitants at the time of the eruption, although it has generally been supposed that the population was from 20,000 to 50,000.
THE GATE OF HERCULANEUM AND STREET OF TOMBS.
Eight gates have been discovered, and the roads outside of them are lined on each side with tombs of considerable size and architectural pretension. The street of tombs, before the gate of Herculaneum, was probably the principal burial place of the city; and the sepulchral monuments adorning it, give evidence of the refined taste and great wealth of the prominent inhabitants. The streets, which, for the most part, run in regular lines, are, with some exceptions, barely wide enough to admit a single vehicle. Five of the main streets have been partially or wholly traced, and with these a regular system of minor streets appear to have been connected. The thoroughfares, with a single exception, terminate in or traverse the western quarter of the city, which is the only part yet completely explored.
The Italian government at present liberally assisting the excavations, the space now laid bare measures about 670,000 square feet, or one-third the whole area occupied by the city. Signor Fiorelli calculates that, making the excavations on an average twenty-five feet deep, and employing eighty-one laborers daily, the whole city will be unearthed in 1947.
Our descent into Herculaneum was by a staircase opening from a small house, where we found a number of guides in uniform. We paid our two francs each, and were remitted to the care of a guide, who pretended to speak English, but, to our great amusement, we soon found out that the whole extent of his English vocabulary amounted to: “Look here!” which precluded every explanation given in Italian. His knowledge of English only tended to make his Italian sound very funny indeed.
After we had seen all that was noteworthy, we mounted the steps into the open air, and returned to Naples. When passing Mt. Vesuvius, our guide told us, that indications of an eruption had been observed, and really in the following year the eruptions came. It did much damage and attracted many visitors to Naples, but it did not equal in extent or magnificence the great eruption of 1872. This outbreak began on the 23d of April, and was at once the grandest and most terrible of all the eruptions that have occurred during this generation.
THE ERUPTION OF 1872.
For some days previous to the outbreak the mountain gave indications of approaching activity, and when the eruption began, hundreds of people observed it from the old lava beds between the observatory and the town of Resina, and some of them remained there during the whole of the night of April 25. Early the next morning two great seams opened under these spectators’ feet; hot sulphurous vapors enveloped them, and as they sought safety in flight, great rivers of lava rushed out of the newly-opened craters, and threatened the frightened sight-seers with speedy destruction. Some found the earth under them too hot to be walked upon, and, falling down, perished where they were. Others were suffocated by the gaseous emanations from the earth, and still others were so injured that they died after reaching a place of safety.