Part 18 (1/2)

We returned, Mr R---- D---- and I, from our visit to Vesuvius, half dead with fatigue from having had little or no rest the whole night, about three o'clock to Naples.

We left Naples in a _caleche_ yesterday after breakfast and drove to Portici. Portici, Resina, and Torre del Greco are beautiful little towns on the sea-sh.o.r.e of the bay of Naples or rather they may be termed a continuation of the city, as they are close together in succession, and the interval filled up with villas. The distance from the gates of Naples to Portici is three miles. The road runs through the court yard of the Royal Palace at Portici which has a large archway at its entrance and sortie. We proceeded to Resina and alighted in order to descend under ground to Herculaneum, Resina being built on the spot where Herculaneum stood. There are always guides on this road on the look out for travellers; one addressed us, and conducted us to a house where we alighted and entered.

Our guide then prepared a flambeau, and having unlocked and lifted up a trap door invited us to descend. A winding _rampe_ under ground leads to Herculaneum. We discovered a large theatre with its proscenium, seats, corridors, vomitories, etc., and we were enabled, having two lighted torches with us, to read the inscriptions. Some statues that were found here have been removed to the Museum at Portici. This is the only part of Herculaneum that has been excavated; for if any further excavations were attempted, the whole town of Resina, which is built over it, would fall in.

Herculaneum no doubt contains many things of value, but it would be rather too desperate a stake to expose the town of Resina to certain ruin, for the sake of what _might_ be found. At Pompeii the case is very different, there being nothing built over its site.

After having satisfied our curiosity here, we regained the light of heaven in Resina, and proceeded to Pompeii, which is seven miles further, the total distance from Naples to Pompeii being ten miles. The part of Pompeii already discovered looks like a town with the houses unroofed situated in a deep gravel or sand pit, the depth of which is considerably greater than the height of the buildings standing in it. You descend into it from the brink, which is on a level with the rest of the country; Pompeii is consequently exposed to the open air, and you have neither to go under ground, nor to use _flambeaux_ as at Herculaneum, but simply to descend as into a pit. There is always a guard stationed at Pompeii to protect the place from delapidation and thefts of antiquarians. From its resembling, as I have already said, a town in the centre of a deep gravel pit, you come upon it abruptly and on looking down you are surprized to see a city newly brought to day. The streets and houses here remain entire, the roofs of the houses excepted, which fell in by the effect of the excavation; so that you here behold a Roman city nearly in the exact state it was hi when it was buried under the ashes of Vesuvius, during its first eruption in the year 79 of the Christian era. It does not appear to me that the catastrophe of Pompeii could have been occasioned by an earthquake, for if so the streets and houses would not be found upright and entire: it appears rather to have been caused by the showers of ashes and _ecroulement_ of the mountain, which covered it up and buried it for ever from the sight of day. The first place our guide took us to see was a superb Amphitheatre about half as large as the Coliseum: the arena and seats are perfect, and all the interior is perfectly cleared out: so are the dens where the wild beasts were kept; so that you look down into this amphitheatre as into a vast basin standing on its brink, which is on a level with the rest of the ground around it, and by means of the seats and pa.s.sages you may descend into the _arena_. This Amphitheatre is at a short distance from the rest of the town. What is at present discovered of this city consists of a long street with several off-sets of streets issuing from it: a temple, two theatres, a praetorium, a large barrack, and a peculiarly large house or villa belonging probably to some eminent person, but no doubt when the excavation shall be recommenced many more streets will be discovered, as from the circ.u.mstance of there being an amphitheatre, two other theatres and a number of sepulchral monuments outside the gates, it must have been a city of great consequence. Most of the houses seem to have had two stories; the roofs fell in of course by the act of excavation, but the columns remain entire. I observe that the general style of building in Pompeii in most of the houses is as follows: that in each building there is a court yard in the centre, something like the court yard of a convent, which is sometimes paved in mosaic, and generally surrounded by columns; in the middle of this court is a fountain or basin: the court has no roof and the wings of the house form a quadrangle environing it. The windows and doors of the rooms are made in the interior sides of the quadrangle looking into the court yard; on the exterior there appears to be only a small latticed window near the top of the room to admit light. I have seen in Egypt and in India similarly built houses, and it is the general style of building in Andalusia and Barbary. In the rooms are niches in the walls for lamps, precisely in the style of the Moorish buildings in India.

In many of the chambers of the houses at Pompeii are paintings _al fresco_ and arabesques on the walls which on being washed with water appear perfectly fresh. The subjects of these paintings are generally from the mythology. In some of the rooms are paintings _al fresco_ of fish, flesh, fowl and fruit; in others Venus and the Graces at their toilette, from which we may infer that the former were dining rooms and the latter boudoirs. A large villa (so I deem it as it stands without the gates) has a number of rooms, two stories entire and three court yards with fountains, many beautiful fresco paintings on the walls of the chambers. Annexed to this villa is a garden arranged in terraces and a fish pond. A covered gallery supported by pillars on one of the sides of the garden served probably as a promenade in wet weather. In the cellars of this villa are a number of _amphorae_ with narrow necks. Had the ancients used corks instead of oil to stop their _amphorae_, wine eighteen hundred years old might have been found here. It is not the custom even of the modern Italians to use corks for the wine they keep for their own use: a spoonful of oil is poured on the top of the wine in the flask and when they mean to drink it they extract the oil by means of a lump of cotton fastened to a stick or long pin which enters the neck of the flask and absorbs and extracts the oil.

Among the buildings discovered in Pompeii is a large Temple of Isis; here you behold the altar and the pillar to which the beasts of sacrifice were fastened. In this temple at the time of the first excavation were found all the instruments of sacrifice and other things appertaining to the wors.h.i.+p of that G.o.ddess. These and other valuables such as statues, coins, utensils of all sorts were removed to Portici, where they are now to be seen in the Museum of that place. The _Praetorium_ at Pompeii is the next remarkable thing; it is a vast enclosure: a great number of columns are standing upright here and the most of them entire; the steps forming the ascent to the elevated seat where the Praetor usually sat, remain entire. There is a large building and court yard near one of the gates of the city supposed to have been a barrack for soldiers; three skeletons were found here with their legs in a machine similar to our stocks. The scribbling and caricatures on the walls of this barrack are perfectly visible and legible.

When one wanders thro' the streets of this singularly interesting city, one is tempted to think that the inhabitants have just walked out. What a dreadful lingering death must have befallen these inhabitants who could not escape from Pompeii at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius which covered it with ashes. The air could only be exhausted by degrees, so that a prolonged suffocation or a death by hunger must have been their lot.

Four skeletons were found upright in the streets, having in their hands boxes containing jewellery and things of value, as if in the act of endeavouring to make their escape: these must soon have perished, but the skeleton of a woman found in one of the rooms of the houses close to a bath shews that her death must have been one of prolonged suffering.

What a fine subject Pompeii would furnish for the pen of a Byron! As I have before remarked, all the valuables and utensils of all sorts found here have been removed to Portici; it is a great pity that everything could not be left in Pompeii in the exact situation in which it was found on its first discovery at the excavation. What a light it would have thrown (which no description can give) on the melancholy catastrophe as well as on the private life and manners of the ancients! But if they had been left here, they would, even tho' a guard of soldiers were stationed here to protect them, have been by degrees all stolen.

There were some magnificent tombs just outside the gates which must have been no small ornament to the city.

We returned to Resina to dinner at six o'clock.

We had made an arrangement with one of the guides of Vesuvius called Salvatore that he should be ready for us at Resina at seven o'clock with a mule and driver for each of us to ascend the mountain, and we found him very punctual at the door of the inn at that hour. The terms of the journey were as follows. One _scudo_ for Salvatore and one _scudo_ for each mule and driver for which they were to forward us to the mountain, remain the whole night and reconduct us to Resina the following morning. The object in ascending at night and remaining until morning is to combine the night view of the eruption with the visit (if possible) to the crater, which cannot with safety be undertaken by night, and to enjoy likewise the n.o.ble view at sunrise of the whole bay and city of Naples and the adjacent islands. We started therefore at a quarter past seven and arrived at half past nine at a small house and chapel, called the hermitage of Vesuvius, which is generally considered as half-way up the mountain. In this house dwells an old ecclesiastic who receives travellers and furnishes them with a couch and frugal repast. We dismounted here and our worthy host provided us with some mortadella and an omelette; and we did not fail to do justice to his excellent _lacrima Christi_, of which he has always a large provision. We then betook ourselves to rest, leaving orders to be awakened at two o'clock in order to proceed further up the mountain. There was a pretty decent eruption of the mountain, which vomited fire, stones and ashes at an interval of twenty-five minutes, so that we enjoyed this spectacle during our ascent. A violent noise, like thunder, accompanies each eruption, which increases the awefulness and grandeur of the sight. At two o'clock our guide and muleteers being very punctual, we bade adieu to the hermit, promising him to come to breakfast with him the next morning; we then mounted our mules and after an hour's march arrived at the spot where the ashes and cinders, combined with the steepness of the mountain, prevent the possibility of going any further except on foot. We dismounted therefore at this place, and sent back our mules to the hermitage to wait for us there.

We now began to climb among the ashes, and tho' the ascent to the position of the ancient crater is not more than probably eighty yards in height, we were at least one hour before we reached it, from its excessive steepness and from gliding back two feet out of three at every step we made. We at length reached the old crater and sat ourselves down to repose till day-break. Tho' it was exceeding cold, the exhalation from the veins of fire and hot ashes kept us as warm as we could wish: for here every step is literally

_per ignes Suppositos cineri doloso_.[97]

We remained on this spot till broad daylight and witnessed several eruptions at an interval of twenty or twenty-five minutes. I remarked that the mountain toward the summit forms two cones, one of which vomited fire and smoke, and the other calcined stones and ashes, accompanied by a rumbling noise like thunder. The stones came clattering down the flanks of the mountain and some of them rolled very near us; had we been within the radius formed by the erupted stones we probably should have been killed.

At daylight Mr R---- D---- proposed to ascend the two cones in spite of the remonstrances of our guide Salvatore, who told us that no person had yet been there and that we must expect to be crushed to death by the stones, should an eruption take place, and that it was almost as much madness to attempt it, as it would be to walk before a battery of cannon in the act of being fired. Tho' I did not admit all the force of this comparison, yet I began to think there was a little too much risk in the attempt; my French friend however was deaf to all remonstrance and said to me, ”_As-tu peur_?”

I replied: ”No! that I was at all times very indifferent as to life or death, but that I did not like pain, and was not at all desirous to have an arm or leg broken, the former accident having happened to a German a few days before; nevertheless, I added, if you persist in going, I will accompany you.” We accordingly started to ascend the cone, which vomited fire and smoke, taking care to place ourselves on the windward side in ascending, and after much fatigue we arrived in about fifteen minutes close to the apex of the cone, after groping amidst the ashes and stumbling on a vein of red hot cinders. My shoes were sadly burnt, my stockings singed and my feet scorched; my friend was less fortunate, for he tumbled down with his hands on a vein of red hot cinders and burned them terribly. My great and princ.i.p.al apprehension in making this ascent was of stumbling upon holes slightly encrusted with ashes and that the whole might give way and precipitate me into some _gouffre._ On arrival at the summit of the cone we had just time to look down and perceive that there was a hole or _gouffre,_ but whether it were very deep or not we could not ascertain, for a blast of fire and smoke issuing from it at this moment nearly suffocated us; we immediately lost no time in gliding down the ashes on the side of the cone on our breech, and reached its base in a few seconds, where we waited till an eruption took place from the other cone, in order to profit of the interval to ascend it also. It required four minutes' walk to reach the base of the other cone and about twelve to ascend to its apex; on arrival at the brink, where we remained about two minutes, we had just sufficient time to observe that there was no deep hole or bottomless _gouffre_ as we expected, but that it formed a crater with a sort of slant and not exceeding thirty feet in depth to the bottom, which looked exactly like a lime-kiln, being of a dirty white appearance, and in continual agitation, as it were of limestones boiling; so that a person descending to the bottom of this crater would probably be scorched to death or suffocated in a few minutes, but would infallibly be ejected and thrown into the air at the first eruption. I mean by this that he would not disappear or fall into a bottomless pit (as I should have supposed before I viewed the crater), but that his friends would be sure of finding his body either yet living or dead, outside the brink of the crater, within the radius made by the erupted stones and ashes.

Our guide now begged us for G.o.d's sake to descend, as an eruption might be expected every minute. We accordingly glided down the exterior surface of the cone among the ashes, on our breech, for it is impossible to descend in any other way and in a few seconds we reached its base. Finding ourselves on a little level ground we began to run or rather wade thro' the ashes in order to get out of reach of the eruption, but we had not gone thirty yards when one took place. The stones clattered down with a frightful noise and we received a shower of ashes on our heads, the dust of which got into our eyes and nearly blinded us. On reaching the brink of the old crater we stopped half an hour to enjoy the fine view of Parthenope in all her glory at sunrise. We then descended rapidly, sometimes plunging down the ashes on our feet and sometimes gliding on our breech till we arrived at the place where we had descended from our mules, and this distance, which required one hour to ascend, cost us in its descent not more than seven minutes.

We then walked to the hermitage in about an hour and a quarter, and arrived there with no other accident than having our shoes and stockings totally spoiled, our feet a little singed, the hands of Mr. R.D. severely burned and both begrimed with ashes like blacksmiths. The ecclesiastic gave us a breakfast of coffee and eggs and a gla.s.s of Maraschino, and we gave him two _scudi_ each. Before we departed he presented to us his Alb.u.m, which he usually does to all travellers, inviting them to write something. I took up the pen and feeling a little inspiration wrote the following lines:

Anch'io salito son sul gran Vesuvio, Mentre cadsa di cineri un diluvio; Questo cammin mi piace d'aver fatto, Ma plu mi piace il ritornare intatto.

which pleased the old man very much to see a foreigner write Italian verse.

I pleased him still more by letting him know that I was an enthusiastic admirer and humble cultivator of the Tuscan Muse, and that having read and studied most of their poets, particularly _il divino Ariosto_, I now and then caught a _scintilletta_ from his verse. We now took a cordial farewell of our worthy old host, mounted our mules and descended the mountain. On arrival at Portici we dismissed our guide Salvatore with a _scudo pour boire_, besides the stipulated price. Salvatore asked me to give him a written certificate of his services, which he generally sollicits from all those whom he conducts to the Volcano. I asked him for his certificate book, and begged to know whether he would have it in prose or verse. He laughed and said: _Vostra Excellenza e padrone_. I took out my pencil and wrote the following quatrain:

Dal monte ignivomo tornati siam stanchissimi, E del buon Salvator siam tutti contentissimi; Felice il pellogrin che a Salvator si fida, Che di lui non si pu trovare un miglior guida.

I never saw any body so delighted as Salvatore appeared when I read to him what I had written in his book.

I have another observation to make before I take leave of this celebrated mountain, which is, that the liquid lava which it ejects is far more dangerous and destructive than the eruption of stones and ashes; the lava flows from the flanks of the mountain in a liquid stream. Sometimes there will be an eruption and no lava flowing: at other tunes the lava flows from the flanks of the mountain, without any eruption from the crater; at other times, and then it is most alarming, the eruption takes place accompanied by the flowing of the lava. All this demonstrates that the volcano is the effect of the efforts of the subterraneous fire to get some vent and escape from its confinement. This time I did not observe any lava flowing, except a slight vein of it on the spot where Mr R.D. fell down and burned his hands; but it is easy to observe on the side of the mountain the course and route taken at different times by the lava, which has become hardened and is very plainly to be distinguished, as it resembles a _river_ (if I may use the word) of slate meandering between the green sward of the mountain and descending toward the sea. You can plainly distinguish the course and direction of the lava which destroyed part of Torre del Greco and swept it into the sea.

At Portici, having washed ourselves at the inn from head to foot in order to get rid of our blacksmith's appearance, and having purchased a new pair of shoes and stockings each, we visited the Royal Palace and Museum with a view princ.i.p.ally of examining the objects of art and valuables discovered in Pompeii. The Royal Palace is called _la Favorita_, its architecture is beautiful; the garden or rather lawn which is ornamented by statues and enriched by orange groves extends to the sea. The first thing that presents itself to the view of the visitor at the Museum of Portici are the two equestrian statues of Marcus Balbus proconsul and procurator and of his son, which statues were found in Herculaneum. I forgot to mention that there is an inscription with that name on the side of the proscenium of the theatre easily legible by the light of _flambeaux_.

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 _ca.s.seroles_, frying pans, spoons, forks, pestles and mortars, instruments of sacrifice, weights and measures, coins, a _carcan_ or _stock_, &c.