One evening we went to the grand Teatro Reale di San Carlo, paying sixteen shillings for a couple of Pit tickets. It is an immense house, supposed to be the largest in the world, gorgeously decorated, with six tiers of boxes, and capable of holding several thousand people. There was not a large audience, however, and as I looked round, eager to discover some of the living ideals of Italian loveliness, I was disappointed to find that but few of the Neapolitan ladies possessed any commanding grace or beauty, neither did their dress betoken much refinement of taste. As the theatre is the time and place for the fair sex to shine its brightest, I took this as a convincing proof that my previous strictures on Italian beauty were not unjust or uncharitable. The opera, which chanced to be "Lucia di Lammermoor," was very good, both vocally and instrumentally, and the dancing was clever and graceful, but to our English eye bordering on the immodest; the spectators, however, greatly applauded it, and probably they were the best judges.
Vesuvius smoked continually during the day, and occasionally shot forth lurid flames into the darkness of the night. We had a capital view of his volcanic performances from our hotel windows, and found it interesting to watch his eccentric ebullitions. Most of our fellow-travellers made the ascent, but as we did not intend to make any stay in Naples—my wife being anxious to pay a long-promised visit to her sister in Malta—we decided to defer the expedition to some future occasion, particularly as we wished to make an excursion to Pompeii, the collection at the museum having greatly interested us and aroused our curiosity. Nowadays the ascent of Vesuvius is no great climb; its four thousand feet are quickly traversed by the funicular railway, which takes visitors nearly the entire distance.
Up to this time the weather had been just comfortably warm, but suddenly the wind shifted to the north-east, and blew bitterly cold. Unfortunately, it was the very day of our proposed visit to Pompeii, and as it was our last day in Naples, we were unable to defer it for more favourable weather.
The drive is some eighteen miles, and no amount of rugs and wraps seemed to protect us from the piercing wintry wind, and keep us warm.
Circling round the southern part of the bay, which is very crowded and somewhat dirty, the sloping shores being lined with macaroni manufactories, we soon passed through the ancient town of Portici, which was once a place of considerable importance, and possesses a royal palace built by Charles III., and adorned with pictures and frescoes from Pompeii, and a museum of statues, arms, bronzes, and furniture taken from the buried city. We next passed Herculaneum, and the town of Resina, which is built over it; Vesuvius and the hilly country on our left, and handsome suburban villas built on lava beds sloping down to the sea on our right. The road, being cut through the original stream of lava, was covered by the traffic with a thick white dust, which did not by any means conduce to our comfort, for the nipping wind blew it up into our faces in clouds, and the glare, caused by the occasional bursts of sunshine, was exceedingly trying to the eyes. We were not sorry to come to the end of our cold, two hours' journey, and find a cheerful wood fire blazing in the little Pompeiian restaurant by which to warm our half-frozen feet, and also something welcome in the way of refreshment. Our little wiry horse had certainly done his duty, and deserved our gratitude. We found the town pretty full of visitors who had driven up, and there were continual fresh arrivals. Therefore, we soon moved away to secure a guide to the erst entombed city. We had been much amused, watching the novel mode of refreshment indulged in by the active little animal that had so speedily brought us on our journey. He had been unharnessed and taken to a bare spot thickly covered with dark lava sand. This he seemed greatly to appreciate, for, after pawing the ground gratefully for a few moments, down he went, and commenced rolling himself over and over with great energy; by-and-by he rose like a giant refreshed, and fell to on his provender most voraciously. This scene reminded me of one I had often witnessed at the Cape of Good Hope, where sand is often similarly used as an excellent and economical substitute for grooming—the sand absorbs the perspiration, and is most refreshing to the poor beasts.
Passing up the hillside through a little plantation at the back of the restaurant, we soon came to the military station of specially selected soldiers, who have the care of the ruins and at the same time act as guides to the visitors. Fortunately, we chanced upon a very intelligent and obliging fellow, who spoke English fluently—a sergeant, who, without being loquacious, was sufficiently communicative to make an agreeable companion and cicerone.
Paying an entrance-fee of two lire each, we passed through the turnstile, and were soon quite absorbed in the ruins around us. The Italian Government, bearing all the expense of disentombing Pompeii, probably look to recoup themselves by the entrance-fees of the numerous visitors who flock to see the long-buried city.
We saw gangs of men and boys clearing away great mounds of pumice and dark lava mould from the ancient streets, which had not seen the light for eighteen centuries, and over which the vine had been planted, and the corn had waved through many generations. It has been demonstrated by an examination of the older crater, that in the great eruption of A.D. 79 Vesuvius first threw up its superficial contents—and, in fact, the very crust of the mountain itself, which, being of a light friable nature, blew over to the more distant city of Pompeii, accompanied by showers of hot water—and it was after this first outbreak that a flood of molten lava poured in a torrent over the nearer city, and enfolded Herculaneum in a bed of rock. There is evidence that Pompeii had been warned of the impending disaster by an earthquake; we have no means yet of knowing whether Herculaneum received a similar warning, but the probability is that it was overwhelmed with awful suddenness.
Pompeii now reposes on an elevated grassy plain, partly encircled by fine ranges of hills, which on the eastern side stretch out towards Castellamare, and at the present time have one or two of their loftiest summits topped with snow. It is now some two or three miles from the sea, which is supposed to have receded at the time of the eruption, for Pompeii, when entombed, was a fashionable watering-place. It was here that Senator Livinius Regulus fixed his residence when banished from Rome in 59; and we learn from Suetonius, that the emperor Claudius had a villa here. He mentions it incidentally as the place where the Emperor's little son died in a singular manner: the child threw a pear up in the air, and caught it in his mouth, and, before any one could come to his assistance, died from choking.
Pompeii was rediscovered in 1748, by Don Rocca Alcubura, Spanish Colonel of Engineers. "Nearly seventeen centuries had rolled away when it was disinterred from its silent tomb, all vivid with undimmed hues—its walls fresh as if painted yesterday; scarcely a hue faded on the rich mosaic of its floors. In its forum the half-finished columns as left by the workman's hands, in its gardens the sacrificial tripod, in its halls the chest of treasure, in its baths the strigil, in its theatres the counter of admission, in its saloons the furniture and the lamp, in its triclinia the fragments of the last feast, in its cubicula the perfumes and the rouge of faded beauty—and everywhere the bones and skeletons of those who once moved the springs of that minute yet gorgeous machine of luxury and of life." The process of disentombment was not proceeded with very rapidly at first; it lingered on, in not too skilful hands, till Garibaldi appointed Alexandre Dumas as superintendent of the work in 1860. This, however, did not improve matters; the great novelist lived at Naples in first-rate style on the liberal income allowed him, and after one visit to the scene of operation, left the work to take care of itself. All was changed, however, under the régime of Signor Florelli, who united the most enthusiastic interest in the work to eminent skill and unwearied patience. Since he undertook the management, the excavations have been made on a scale, and with a care, that will soon exhaust whatever objects still remain buried under the ashes.