 |
found in
the buried cities. The collection is exceedingly larger, buried and wonderful.
I have not anywhere seen so fine and full array of ancient sculpture. One
room contains statues in bronze and several other rooms are filled with
marble figures and busts, many of which are exquisite in proportion and
finish. Frescoes from Pompeii, without number, are here preserved. Domestic
utensils and implements of husbandry, in copper and iron, as well as all
sorts of pottery and some specimens of glass-ware, fill several large rooms.
One is struck with the resemblance of many of them to implements still in
use with us. Few see these specimens of the jewelry, the bracelets, the
finger rings, and the cameos which the Pompeiian ladies wore. There too
is some of the fruit, and a loaf or two of bread, stamped with maker’s
name, dried and slightly charred, but-other wise appearing, precise as they
did nearly eighteen hundred years ago. Few see also the key of the city
gates, found in the skeleton hand of the sentinel, who did desert his past
at the coming on of the firery storm that destroyed the city. The day in
the Museum and the day at Pompeii was very enjoyable, and its sights and
impressions can never be effaced from the mind.
Our next excursion was to the remarkable volcano of Vesuvius. A carriage
drive of two or three hours brings us to the last of the mountain. There
the bodies of the gentlemen take horses, while others of us walk to the
house of the cove, a distance of some five miles, being a gradual ascent,
and focus of the way over immense fields of lava, folded and twisted into
various shapes as it flowed hot down the mountain side. Its black wavy form
resembles, in everything but color, vast glaciers. The region is awfully
bleak and desolate appearance, and one almost shudders at the emblem of
terror and power around him.
It is no easy matter to ascend to the cone. It is very steep, and the loose
sand and stone give way under your feet at every step. At length all get
up safely and in good spirits and sitting down by a little firery fissure
on the summit, we had some eggs roasted by volcanic heat. We then proceeded
to the verge of the
|