To return to the Museum at Portici, we were then shewn into a room containing curious morceaux of antiquity discovered at Pompeii: a tripod in bronze and various other articles of the same metal; tables, various lamps in bronze, resembling exactly those used in Hindostan, wooden pens, dice, grains of corn quite black and scorched, a skeleton of a woman with the ashes incrusted round it (the form of her breast is seen on the crust of ashes; golden armlets were found on her which were shewn to us), steel mirrors, combs, utensils for culinary purposes, such as casseroles, frying pans, spoons, forks, pestles and mortars, instruments of sacrifice, weights and measures, coins, a carcan or stock, &c.
In the upper rooms are to be seen the paintings and fresques found in the same place. The paintings are poor things, and in their landscapes the Romans seem to have had little more idea of perspective than the Chinese; but the fresques are beautiful: the female figures belonging thereto are delineated with the utmost grace and delicacy. They consist of subjects chiefly from the mythology. I noticed the following in particular, viz., Chiron teaching the young Achilles to draw the bow; the discovery of Orestes; Theseus and the Minotaur (he has just slain the Minotaur and a boy is in the act of kissing his hand as if to thank him for his deliverance; the Minotaur is here represented as a monster with the body of a man and the head of a bull); a Centaur carrying off a nymph; a car drawn by a parrot and driven by a cricket: a woman offering to another little Loves for sale (she is pulling out the little Cupids from a basket and holding them by their wings as if they were fowls); a beautiful female figure seated on a monster something like the Chimaera of the ancients and holding a cup before the monster's mouth (emblematical of Hope nourishing a Chimaera). The arabesques taken from Pompeii and preserved here are very beautiful. Here also are two statues found in Pompeii: the one representing a drunken Faun, the other a sitting Mercury. We met two Polish ladies here, who were amusing themselves in copying the fresques. We returned to Naples at five o'clock, and dined at the Villa di Napoli. In the evening we went to the Teatro de' Fiorentini. The piece performed was Pamela or La virtû premiata, which I understand is quite a stock piece in Italy. It is written by Goldoni. It was very badly performed; the actors were not perfect in their parts, and the prompter's voice was as loud as usual. The costume was appropriate enough, which is far from being always the case at this theatre.
NAPLES, 13 Octr.
We started on the 12th at six o'clock in the morning (Mr R——- D. and myself) in a calèche in order to visit Puzzuoli, Baii and all the classical ground in that direction. We of course passed through the grotto of Pausilippo. This grotto is thirty feet high and about five hundred feet long. In fact, it is a vast rock undermined and a high road running thro' it, the breadth of which is sufficient for three carriages to go abreast. From its great length it is of course exceeding dark; in order therefore to obviate this inconvenience lamps constantly lighted are suspended from the roof and on the sides of the grotto, and holes pierced towards the top to admit a little daylight. The road pierced thro' this rock and called the grotto of Pausilippo abridges the journey to Puzzuoli very considerably, as otherwise you would be obliged to go round by Cape Margelina, which would increase the distance ten miles. On issuing from the grotto on the other side, you arrive in a few minutes on the seashore, on the bay formed between Cape Margelina and Puzzuoli. We stopped at the lake Agnano which is strongly impregnated with sulfur. On the banks of this lake are the Thermae or vapour baths, and here is also the famous Grotto del Cane, the pestilential vapour arising from which rises about three inches from the ground and has the appearance of a spider's web. An unfortunate dog performs the miracle of the resurrection to all those who visit this natural curiosity; and we also were curious to see its effect. The guardian of the Thermes seized the poor animal and held his nose close to the place from whence the vapour exhales. The dog was seized with strong convulsions and in two minutes he was perfectly senseless and to all appearance dead; but on being placed in the open air, he soon recovers. The poor beast shews evident repugnance to the experiment, and I wonder he does not endeavor to make his escape, for he has sometimes to perform this feat four or five times a day. I should suppose that he will not be very long lived, for the repeated doses of this mephitic vapour must surely accelerate his dissolution. The heat of the Thermae and steam of the sulphur is almost insupportable; but it has a most beneficial effect on maladies of the nerves and cutaneous complaints.
We then proceeded on our journey to Puzzuoli, the ancient Puteoli, where are the remains of the famous mole (or bridge as others call it) of Caligula, intended to embrace or unite the two extremes of the bay of Baiae formed on one side by Puzzuoli and on the other by cape Misenus. We alighted to take a déjeuner à la fourchette at Puzzuoli, and then went to visit the temple of Jupiter Serapis, which is a vast edifice and tho' in ruins very imposing. On wandering thro' the enceinte of this famous temple, I thought of Apollonius of Tyana and his sudden appearance to his friend Damis at the porch of this very temple, when he escaped from the fangs of Domitian and when it was believed that, by means of magic art, he had been able at once to transport himself from the Praetorium at Rome to Puteoli. As I said before, the bay included by cape Misenus and Puzzuoli is what is called Baiae. The land is low and marshy from Puzzuoli to a little beyond the lake Avernus; but from Monte Nuovo it begins to rise and form high cliffs nearly all way to Cape Misenus. It was on these high cliffs that the opulent Romans built their villas and they must have been as much crowded together as the villas at Ramsgate and Broadstairs. We embarked in a boat at Puzzuoli to cross over to Baiae (i.e., the place where the villas begin), but we stopped on our way thither at a landing place nearly in the centre of the bay in order to visit the lake Avernus and the Cave of the Cumaean Sybil, described by Virgil, as the entrance into the realm of Pluto. The lake Avernus, in spite of its being invested by the poets with all that is terrible in the mythology as a river of Hell, looks very like any other lake, and tho' it is impregnated with sulphur, and emits a most unpleasant smell, birds do not drop down dead on flying over it as formerly. The ground about it is marshy and unwholesome. The silence and melancholy appearance of this lake and its environing groves of wood are not calculated to inspire exhilarating ideas. Full of classic souvenirs we went to descend into the Cave of the Sybil, and as we descended I could not refrain from repeating aloud Virgil's lines:
Di quibus imperium est animarum umbrasque silentes,[98] etc.
This descent really is fitted to give one an idea of the descent to the shades below, and what added to the illusion was that when we arrived at the bottom of the descent and just at the entrance of the cave where the Sybil held her oracles, we discovered four fierce looking fellows with lighted torches in their hands standing at the entrance. My friend cried out Voilà les Furies, and these proved to be our boatmen who, while we were contemplating the bolge d'Averno, had run on before to provide torches to shew us the interior of the grotto of the Sybil. As this grotto is nearly knee-deep filled with water we got on the backs of the boatmen to enter it. It is about twenty-five feet long, fifteen broad and the height about thirteen feet. As we were neither devoured by Cerberus nor hustled by old Charon into his boat, we returned from the Shades below to the light of heaven, triumphant like Ulysses or Aeneas, considering ourselves now among the Pauci quos aequus amavit Jupiter.[99]
Acheron, the dreadful Acheron, is not far from Avernus and is likewise a lake, tho' call'd a river in the mythology. It is also sulfuric and the ground about it is woody, low, marshy and consequently aguish.
We next ascended the cliffs of Baiae and we were shown the remains of the villas of Cicero, Caesar, Sylla and other great names. We then went to the baths of Nero (so called). Here it is the fashion to descend under ground in order to feel the effect of the sulfuric heat, which is intense, and my friend who descended soon returned dripping with perspiration and calling out: Qui n'a pas vu cela n'a rien vu! but I did not chuse to descend, as I could feel no pleasure in being half stifled and the grotto del Cane had already given me a full idea of the force of the vapour of the Thermes.
We then descended from the cliffs of Baiae on the other side, and visited the remains of three celebrated temples of antiquity situated on the beach nearly and very close to each other, viz., the temples of Diana, of Venus and of Mercury; all striking objects and majestic, tho' in a state of dilapidation. Each of these temples has cupolas. We then ascended the slope of ground leading towards cape Misensus, to visit the Cento Camarelle and Piscina mirabile, both vast edifices under ground, serving as cellars or appendages to a Palace that stood on this spot. We then visited the lake called the Mare Morto or Styx; and then went round to the other side of it, to visit those beautiful coteaux planted in vines and their summits crowned with groves which have obtained the name of the Elysian fields. This Styx and these Elysian fields look like any other lake and coteaux and are entirely indebted to the lyre of Maro for their celebrity.