BAY OF NAPLES AND MOUNT VESUVIUS, ITALY. Naples, in itself one of the least interesting of Italian cities, attracts the attention of the tourist by its transcendent beauty of situation and by the historical and picturesque interest of its surroundings. The Bay of Naples is the most glorious spot in the Mediterranean. Its circuit is more than fifty-two miles, including the islands of Ischia, at the north-west, and of Capri, at the south entrance. At its opening, between these two islands, it is fourteen miles broad, and from the opening to its head, at Portici, the distance is fifteen miles. On the north-east shore, east of Naples, is an extensive flat, whence rises Vesuvius, the most famous of European volcanoes, at the base of which are several villages and the classic sites of Herculaneum and Pompeii. The Italian proverb, “See Naples and die,” is a tribute to the beauty of the city and its environment.
POMPEII, ITALY. The volcanic eruption which overwhelmed Pompeii on August 24th, A. D. 79, has afforded us our most important, indeed, almost our only source of acquaintance with the domestic life of the ancient Romans. To be sure it represents one definite epoch of antiquity only, that of the glories of the early empire when Pompeii became the favorite retreat of Romans of the wealthier classes. But the study of the various phases of life at this epoch forms a pursuit of inexhaustible interest. The ashes from Vesuvius completely covered over the town to the depth of about twenty feet until the year 1748, when the accidental discovery of some statues led to the excavations. They have been continued up to the present time, and will not be completed for half a century more.
ACROPOLIS, ATHENS, GREECE. This famous building, at once the citadel, the sanctuary, the treasury and the museum of art of the ancient Athenian people, crowns the summit of the rocky height which abruptly rises three hundred and fifty feet out of the plain in the midst of the city, inaccessible on all save the western side. The walls, built on the edge of the perpendicular rock, form a circuit of nearly seven thousand feet. These are of immense antiquity. They were founded by the Pelagians, and the work was continued by Themistocles, Cymon, Valerian, and later, by the Venetians and the Turks. Here are the remains of three temples, the Temple of Victory, the Erechtheum and the Parthenon, the latter the architectural glory of Athens, the only octastyle Doric temple in Greece, and in its own class the most beautiful building in the world. It was built in the time of Pericles, and was once adorned with masterpieces of sculpture of which it was long ago plundered.
THE BOSPHORUS, FROM CONSTANTINOPLE, TURKEY. No city in the world occupies a more magnificent natural position than the capital of Turkey. It is made up of three cities, each distinct and different from the others. Stamboul, the old city, lies upon a tongue of land of triangular shape, having the sea of Marmora on the south, the Bosphorus on its eastern apex and the Golden Horn on the north. Its seven hills are crowned with domes and minarets and fantastic houses, backed by the dark foliage of the cypress and other trees in the cemeteries beyond the walls. To the north is the European quarter, Galata being the business centre, while Pera is studded all over with the splendid residences of the foreign ambassadors, &c., and lined along its shores with the palaces and gardens of the Sultan and the adjoining mosques. Skutari, the Asiatic quarter of Constantinople, is on the eastern side of the Bosphorus. Nowhere else is there a picture so bright, so varied in outline, so gorgeous in color, so heterogeneous in its component parts.
THE MOSQUE OF ST. SOPHIA, CONSTANTINOPLE, TURKEY. This is the principal place of Mahommedan worship in the world. Anciently a Christian temple, built in 532 by Justinian, it was converted into a Moslem mosque in 1453 by Mohammed II, the conqueror of Constantinople. The building is in the form of a Greek cross, two hundred and seventy feet long by two hundred and forty-three wide, surmounted by a flattened dome one hundred and eighty feet high, with several smaller domes and minarets. The style of architecture is Byzantine. The exterior is not as imposing as the interior, which even now is rivaled by few Christian churches, and at the time of its erection made this masterpiece of Byzantine architecture the greatest temple in the world. Well may Justinian have exclaimed: “I have surpassed thee, O Solomon!” The changes made by the Moslems are greater inside than out. In the interior the mosaics have been partially covered up and replaced by inscriptions from the Koran, but there is no structural change. Outside most of the older annexes have been swept away and replaced by Turkish buildings, lofty minarets rise at each corner, and the crescent replaces the cross on the dome.
