From Leghorn, our traveler proceeded in a steamer to Civita Vecchia, the seaport of Rome; from thence by land to Rome, and through it continued toward Naples, intending to make a longer visit to the "eternal city," later in the season. The route between the two cities, is to some extent over the old Appian Way, which led through the famous Pontine marshes; these are twenty-four miles long, and stretch back from the sea from six to twelve miles. Anciently these marshes were always under water, and are partially so now at some seasons. From thousands of years back emperors, princes, and popes, have successively made efforts to drain this pestilential pool, so that now a large part of it is cultivated. Still, the sallow countenances of the few miserable wretches who tend their flocks amid these miasmatic fens show their deadly effects.

The first towns he passed through after entering the Neapolitan states, appeared to be the most filthy, wretched, and poverty-stricken, he had ever seen. At one of them, while his baggage was undergoing the usual customhouse examinations, he was surrounded by hundreds of most miserable objects of want, and woe, who by scores stretched out their hands, and in piteous accents implored charity.

Just before entering Mora, he passed a splendid monument, erected to the memory of Cicero, on the very spot where he was overtaken and beheaded; it is now crumbling to decay by the tooth of time, while the intellectual monuments erected by himself, will endure for succeeding ages in all their original grandeur and exquisite proportions. Nearing Naples, which is 118 miles distant from Rome, he found the road level as a floor, and leading through a rich country, where "the vineyards seemed to have added magnificence to beauty." Immense trees were growing in regular ranges covered with hanging vines, some of which had leaped from tree to tree, and hung down in fantastic garlands and graceful festoons.

Naples is the most attractive of all Italian cities; the people have a proverb, "see Naples and then die." It presents a remarkably gay and lively aspect, and its bay, some thirty miles across, is unsurpassed in the world. The town rises from it like an amphitheater, and from the summit in the rear, the scene presented is like enchantment.

Naples is the third city in Europe, containing about 400,000 inhabitants, 30,000 of whom are lazzaroni; many of this class have no home, but sleep in the open air, anywhere in the streets; they live upon next to nothing, the mildness of their climate and their habits, allowing them to subsist without fire and with scarcely any clothing. Whenever they get a chance, they officiate as porters, carrying with them for that purpose, a huge basket in which they lodge at night. They sing and sport, play at cards, stretch themselves at full length on the pavement in the sun, gather and sell old tobacco quids, and stumps of smoked cigars, beg, when opportunity offers, and perform all offices of nature in the open street, with the shamelessness of so many dogs. But their greatest luxury seems to be in hunting heads: one will often see them seated in rows on the street side, one behind the other, hunting the head of his companion who is seated before him, each in turn busy. Long degradation has made them apparently contented with their situation,

and with plenty of maccaroni and vegetables to eat, they seem to be a

merry race.

Beside beggars, Naples has in, and about it, some thirty or forty thousand soldiers, mostly Swiss and Austrian mercenaries; also a numerous body of ecclesiastics, a well-fed, fat, portly class, who appear to have uncommonly easy times; for they are without the care of families, most of them never preach, but have only pastoral duties, masses, and confessions to attend to, which being divided among a large number are very trifling. Aside from these are the monks, leeches devouring the fatness of the land. With her restricted commerce Naples would be sunk into still lower depths of poverty and degradation, but for the amazing fertility of the country.

In the chapel of St. Severus are some wonderful pieces of statuary. The female figure, representing Modesty, is a master-piece she is covered with a transparent vail, wrought in white marble, and so delicate is it, that one can not only trace through it, the general outline of the figure which it enfolds, but all its features in their exquisite beauty of expression. Another remarkable figure, a sublime triumph of genius, is that of Christ extended on the cross. "The form and very muscles are seen through the vail, and the whole looks as if moistened by the clammy sweat of death, while the sublime resignation of our Savior's last hours seems lingering still upon the lifeless

countenance."

The burial-place for the poor of Naples consists of an immense square, walled in, and containing 365 pits, one for each day in the year. Each of these are 12 feet square, walled around, and covered over without any opening, except a sort of small trap-door on the surface. Each day in turn a pit is opened, and the corpses, entirely naked, are thrown in: quicklime is cast over these, and the trap-door sealed up; then just one year elapses for the decomposition of the bodies ere the vault is used again. Dr. Fisk says, he looked into the pit that was open on the day of his visit, and saw some half a dozen infants, perfectly naked, which had just been cast in; they were fast sinking down into the putrefied mass of by-gone years. In this manner are the poor of the Italian cities generally buried, and it is not uncommon to see rats and other vermin rioting upon the loathsome mass.

The greatest object of curiosity in Naples is the Museum, containing the relics discovered by the excavations made in the buried cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii. One sees here, historical records, telling in stronger terms than language, of what those cities were, at the moment of their destruction. We do not here allude to the specimens of fine arts, the ancient preserved paintings, the beautiful mosaics, and the splendid statuary, for these are probably equaled by relics of a similar character elsewhere discovered. But to visit a place filled with all the farming tools, kitchen utensils, articles of the toilet, merchandise of the stores, public and private furniture, the sacred vessels and implements of the temples; in fine, everything connected "with war or peace, public or private life, business or pleasure, art or literature, the licentiousness or the religion of a refined, licentious, luxurious, and superstitious people, existing two thousand years ago, is to see one of the most surprising exhibitions the world has ever beheld.

"In these relics of a former age we are surprised to see, in a great many instances, the very implements over again with which we are conversant at the present day; the same pans, the pots and kettles, the gridirons, the ladles, the steelyards, the stoves, stamps for printing letters on bread, nay, some of the very bread itself stamped; ink-stands, with remains of ink'in them, pens or styli, opera tickets, door-trimmings, bits for bridles, musical instruments, dice, spinning-wheels, distaffs, locks and keys, surgical instruments, almost equal to the modern, moulds for pastry, skimmers, grates, stocks for the feet of prisoners, andirons, mirrors, rouge and other paints for the face-for ladies, it seems, improved upon nature in those days as well as now; combs, curlingtongs, and other requisites for the toilette. In short, you seem here to be translated back two thousand years, and led into all the familiar scenes of domestic life. And worse than this, there is a reserve room, which none are allowed to enter without a special permit from the director. As the contents of this room are not decent to be publicly exposed, even in an Italian museum, of course they are not proper to be described, even if one could make up his mind to describe them. They are mentioned here as a proof of the extreme licentiousness of those cities.

The great evidence of universal, or, at least, general corruption in Pompeii, is the fact that some of these impure indications were taken from the houses of the first citizens, and from the toilettes of the ladies of those families. Diomedes, whose suburban villa was just beyond the gates of Pompeii, appears to have been a man of consular dignity; and yet his ladies, his daughter, as is supposed, had such forms of jewelry and toys of her toilet as may not be described, and as no virtuous woman could expose on her person. No wonder these cities were overwhelmed by the visitation of Divine Providence."

CHAPTER II

ENVIRONS of Naples-Pliny's description of the Eruption of Vesuvius, A. D. 79-PompeiiVilla of Diomedes-Licentiousness of the Ancient Romans-Herculaneum-Excursion to Vesuvius Rome-Passion Week-Imposing Ceremonies-Illumination of St. Peter'sAntiquities-Falls of Terni-Battle Ground of Hannibal and Flaminius-BolognaTasso-Tomb of Petrarch-Padua Venice-Halls of the Secret Tribunals—Bridge of Sighs-Dungeons-Mechanical Procession-Legacy to the Pigeons-Religious Character of the People-Milan-Entrance into Switzerland.

THE environs of Naples are full of interesting objects. The ruins of Pæstum are fifty-four miles south-easterly from it. After having survived the Roman Empire, Pæstum was destroyed by the Saracens about the tenth century, and it remained unknown to the world from that time until 1755, when it was accidentally discovered by an artist on a sketching excursion. The first part of the road to it from Naples leads by the ruins of Pompeii, through a beautiful, cultivated country of vineyards; the latter part is among pestiferous swamps, where the desolating malaria holds its court: the visitor is therefore not only obliged to carry his own food, but his water, for here he may not even drink-the water changing everything into stone.

Comparatively speaking, there are no ruins here; all smaller works of art have been merged into the common mass of earth; but the walls of the city, fifty feet high, exist in detached spots, and three temples, with their gates, lift their heads against the sky, and as viewed in the indistinctness of night, are solemnly grand and impressive. Formerly, the deserted situation of the place, made it much frequented by brigands, who laid in wait for small parties to the ruins.

Pompeii, which stands a mile from the sea, was buried under a shower of cinders, ashes, and stones, emitted continuously from Vesuvius, for four days and nights, in the year 79, and by the same eruption which destroyed Herculaneum. So extensive and thick was the cloud of smoke and ashes that filled the atmosphere, by this eruption, that it was visible in Africa, and Palestine, and at Rome, 120 miles distant, turned the light of day into the darkness of night, to the consternation of the inhabitants. The eruption, it is supposed, was not so violent as to prevent the escape of most of the inhabitants of Pompeii, as but very few skeletons were found. Those remaining were probably slaves, or those who fell, in the total darkness which prevailed even at noon, by which they became bewildered, and falling over fragments of ruin, were rendered insensible.

“As a favorite place of occasional residence to families of distinction from Rome, Pompeii, at the time, contained, or had in its neighborhood, several Romans whose names are familiar to the readers of history; among others, Cesius Bassus, a poet, and Agrippa, son of Claudius Felix, the well-known governor of Judea, both of whom became victims of the eruption. Pliny the elder, it appears, was residing at Misenum, on the northern promontory of the Gulf of Naples, along with his nephew, known to us as Pliny the younger. Fortunately, two letters written by the nephew to his friend Tacitus, describing the catastrophe which killed his uncle and overwhelmed Pompeii and other cities, have been preserved in an epistolary collection of the author. The following is the first and most valuable of these celebrated letters: "Your request that I would send you an account of my uncle's death, in order to transmit a more exact relation of it to posterity, deserves my acknowledgments; for if this accident shall be celebrated by your pen, the glory of it, I am well assured, will be rendered forever illustrious; and, notwithstanding he perished by a misfortune, which, as it involved at the same time a most beautiful country in ruins, and destroyed so many populous cities, seems to promise him an everlasting remembrance; notwithstanding he has himself composed many and lasting works; yet I am persuaded the mentioning of him in your immortal writings will greatly contribute to eternize his name. Happy I esteem those to be whom Providence has distinguished with the abilities either of doing such actions as are worthy of being related, or of relating them in a manner worthy of being read; but doubly happy are they who are blest with both these uncommon talents; in the number of which my uncle, as his own writings and your history will evidently prove, may justly be ranked. It is with extreme willingness, therefore, that I execute your commands; and should, indeed, have claimed the task, if you had not enjoined it

My uncle was, at the time, with the fleet under his command at Misenum. On the 23d of August, about one o'clock in the afternoon, my mother desired him to observe a cloud which appeared of a very unusual size and shape. He had just returned from taking the benefit of the sun,* and after bathing himself in cold water, and taking a slight repast, had retired to his study: he immediately arose and went out upon an eminence from which he might more distinctly view this very uncommon appearance. It was not at that distance discernible from what mountain this cloud issued, but it was found afterward to ascend from Mount Vesuvius. I cannot give you a more exact description of its figure, than by resembling it to that of a pine tree, for it shot up a great height in the form of a trunk, which extended itself at the top into a sort of branches; occasioned, I imagine, either by a sudden gust of air that impelled it, the force of which decreased as it advanced upward; or the cloud itself being pressed back again by its own weight, expanded in this manner. It appeared sometimes bright, and sometimes dark and spotted, as it was either more or less impregnated with earth and cinders. This extraordinary phenomenon excited my uncle's philosophical curiosity to take a nearer view of it. He ordered a light vessel to be got ready, and gave me the liberty, if I thought proper, to attend him. I rather chose to continue my studies; for, as it happened, he had given me an employment of that kind. As he was coming out of the house he received a note from Rectina, the wife of Bassus, who was in the utmost alarm at the imminent danger which threatened her; for her villa being situated at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, there was no way to escape but by sea. She earnestly entreated him, therefore, to come to her assistance. He accordingly changed his first design, and what he began with a philosophical, he pursued with a heroical turn of mind. He ordered the galleys to put to sea, and went himself on board, with an intention of assisting not only Rectina, but several others; for the villas stand extremely thick upon the beautiful coast. When hastening to the place from which others fled with the utmost terror, he steered his direct course to the point of danger, and with so much calmness and presence of mind, as to be able to make and dictate his observations upon the motion and figure of that dreadful scene. He was now so nigh the mountain that the cinders, which grew thicker and hotter the nearer he approached, fell into the ships, together with pumicestones, and black pieces of burning rock; they were likewise in danger not only of being aground by the sudden retreat of the sea, but also from the vast fragments which rolled down from the mountain, and obstructed all the shore. Here he stopped to consider whether he should return back again, to which the pilot advising him-Fortune favors the brave,' said he; carry me to Pomponianus.'

Pomponianus was then at Stabiæ, separated by a gulf which the sea, after several insensible windings, forms upon that shore. He had already sent his baggage on board; for though he was not at that time in actual danger, yet

*The Romans used to lie or walk naked in the sun, after anointing their bodies with oil, which was esteemed as greatly contributing to health, and therefore daily practiced by them.