University of Virginia Library

NAPLES.

POZZUOLI.

The câleche which I took in the suburbs, soon
brought me in front of the high mound denominated
Virgil's tomb; as my immediate arrangements precluded
a minute inspection, I could only sigh at the
discrepancy between the ideal and actual spot. Such
en passant reflections were soon dissipated by the
curious and antiquated scene in which I almost immediately
found myself. This was no other than
the Grotto of Posilipo, a cavern road, excavated so
long ago that the date of the work is lost, through
the high mount which divides Naples from Pozzuoli.
I rode along this remarkable highway for the distance

of half a mile. Its obscurity is only rendered
more mysterious by the dim light of the lamps occasionally
suspended upon the sides, and the broad
glare of day seen at either end, through the dark
perspective.

A few moments' ride, after emerging, brought me
upon the sea-side, along which the remainder of my
course lay. Upon a jutting point appeared Pozzuoli,
an ancient town, while the hill-side, skirting my
road on the right, displayed stratas of lava. Having
discharged my conveyance, I proceeded to the old
mole, considerable remnants of which still exist, and
then hastened to the ruins of the temple of Jupiter
Serapis. Three very lofty columns alone remain
standing, but several large fragments lie scattered
around. The remaining exterior walls clearly indicate
the original dimensions and shape of the temple,
which was evidently on the highest scale of magnificence.
Indeed, no remain of this class presented
to me such a literal ruin as this. More than a foot
of water covers the extensive marble floor, which
slimy weeds completely hide. A ring and several
broken vessels are discoverable, denoting the sacrifices
of which it has been the scene. One of the
columnar fragments is eaten, in a most remarkable
manner, by a species of insect—the incisions being
as large as an augur-hole. Near the ruins are remains
of sulphur, vapour and mineral baths.

My attention was drawn to the amphitheatre,
a ruin in excellent preservation. I was able to

walk, for a long space, between the two walls, within
which are the caves for wild beasts, and exteriorly
the shape is discernible. The arena is covered with
trees; they were destitute of verdure, and the intervening
space, thickly sown with grain, the green
shoots of which had already put forth from a soil
doubtless fertilized with human blood, and presenting
to the casual spectator any thing rather than a
spot where cruelty had often triumphed, and suffering
been Romanly endured. The solfatura, or manufacture
of sulphur and alum, from the native material,
furnished yet another object in the vicinity.
The process, from the absence of any considerable
apparatus, is apparently very simple; probably little
more than the melting and straining of the original
substances, of which the surrounding hills are in a
great measure composed. Where large excavations
have been made, boiling springs have issued, the
odour of which is tremendous. In many places the
ground beneath seemed hollow, and I fancied I
heard volcanic rumblings.

Resuming my walk, I passed over the mountainside,
where there is a very rough though somewhat
worn path. The sun had just passed his meridian,
and the heat and exercise soon produced considerable
fatigue, so that I was glad to dine on the
campagna bread and wine, in the cottage of a contardini.
Having reached the Lake d'Agnano, and
admired its placid beauty, I found it impossible to
enter the grotto del cane, or see the experiment

from which it derives its name, as the custode, like
most of his neighbours, had gone to enjoy the festa
within the city. But I had seen enough of nature's
gaseous operations for one day, and could too easily
imagine this, to regret the accident of not witnessing
it.

About an hour's rapid walking brought me once
more to the grotto wood, through which I passed,
and was again in Naples. Upon reaching the
chiaja, the placid waters of the broad bay, the red
streak upon Vesuvius, the busy, mingled and noisy
crowd—all accorded with what I had read, and almost
with what I had imagined of the city. Upon
the square in front of the royal palace, the church of
St. Francisco appeared, studded with small lights
upon the top of the corridors, domes and cross. In
a few moments, at a signal fired from below, far
brighter and larger flames flashed up in the intervening
spaces, exhibiting the statues in broad relief,
and the square filled with an admiring populace.
The Toledo, too, was crowded, and every house illuminated;—it
was the evening of the king's birthday,
and his seemingly happy subjects, of every
rank, class and calling, were abroad and active.

POMPEII.

The weather being very unpromising on the succeeding
morning, I had determined to pass it
within the city as profitably as might be, and having
visited several churches, and taken a glimpse of the
large dull chambers of the court of justice, I entered
the celebrated museum, which contains, among
sundry other curiosities, the disinterred relics of another
age and a by-gone people—the various articles
rescued from Herculaneum and Pompeii. After inspecting
the strange and frequently beautiful frescos,
I entered the gallery of sculpture, and viewed the
innumerable busts of heroic, political and philosophical
characters there collected—the statues of emperors,
of heathen divinities, of fabulous beings, of
men venerated for ages for their virtues or wisdom,
or `damned to fame' for their licentious use of temporary
power. I found myself somewhat familiar
with the forms and features of these personages,
having become partially acquainted therewith during
my visit to the other galleries of Italy. I was particularly
delighted with a statue of Aristides—the
position of which seems truly inimitable; it breathes

the very spirit of that dignity which is founded
solely upon moral pre-eminence. I gazed with interest
upon the trophies from Egypt, the remarkable
idols, the well preserved mummies, the laboured
hieroglyphics; and with wonder upon the bronzes
preserved, it is difficult to tell how, from the effect
of a heat apparently intense enough to melt them
into their original crude forms. Deeming this view
of the lower halls sufficient for one day, and finding
that the threatened sirocco was destined to be less
formidable than I imagined, I left Naples, and
in about two hours was walking beneath the half
obscure sky of a mild afternoon, through a city
whose inhabitants vanished from the earth like a
mist, and whose glory, if glory consists in fame, results,
not like that of other places, from the hallowing
actions of mankind, but from the destructive
operations of nature—I was in Pompeii. With
what feelings of curiosity and awe did I tread upon
the very pavement where, two thousand years ago,
hundreds of my fellow beings moved to and fro,
with all the carelessness, the eagerness of pursuit,
the selfishness of purpose, which another race so
long trod above their entombed habitations! Stript
as Pompeii is of those objects which rendered it,
when first discovered, the greatest of wonders, the
very sight of houses, shops, theatres and temples,
broken and imperfect as they are, where ages ago
this wonderful phenomena of human existence was
carried on, and its several elements sustained, even
as at present: this is most wonderful, most exciting.
We seem to know, as never before, that human nature
has ever been the same—the same in its wants,
if not the same in its resources. There are those
who can witness the passing away of one of the
myriads of men which people the earth, or stand
among the congregated tombs of their kind, and yet
feel no light shed upon the darkness of their scepticism,
and doubt a better destiny for man, even over
the gloomy consummation of his physical existence.
But who can enter the living tomb of a civilized
people, which has appeared, almost magically,
after the lapse of centuries, and not yield, without
resistance, to its most eloquent teachings? Viewing
the identical means of life, bodily and mental, that
were wrought by an extinct race for the gratification
of their native propensities, and computing the degree
of thought, the exercise of sentiment here unfolded,
can any one believe that the fiery masses
which failed to destroy these conventional means,
palsied in oblivion the energies that created them?

Pompeii, its history, the particulars of its disinterment,
the objects it presents, are familiar to the
mind of almost every one. We can scarcely hope,
in its present state, to do more than realize our abstract
ideas concerning it. One impression the observant
visiter of this day cannot but carry away,
and that is, that its yet undiscovered treasures will
exceed all that the past has unfolded.

VESUVIUS.

Under favourable auspices I commenced moving,
upon a donkey, from the village of Resina towards
Vesuvius, through a kind of lane choked up with
earth and stones. Two hours of slow riding brought
me to the first elevation, where stands a cottage,
called the Hermitage, inhabited by an old monk,
and affording shelter to the guards upon the mountain.
My course became then confined to a mule-path,
so much impeded by the heavy masses of lava,
that none but the experienced animal I bestrode
could have made a way along its rough and broken
surface. I was soon upon a vast plain of crude
black lava, thrown into a thousand accidental forms,
and presenting a wide scene of utter desolation. At
the foot of Vesuvius, properly so called, I left the
animal, and commenced climbing the steep ascent.
Being obliged to tread solely upon the craggy projections
or small fragments of the lava, and sometimes
upon ashes only, the process proved exceedingly
fatiguing. Although in part sustained by the
guide by means of the horse's bridle, I was several
times obliged to sit down upon some projecting

point and collect breath for a fresh effort. Proceeding
thus, I at length reached the comparatively
level space immediately below the uppermost elevation.
Here, as I advanced towards the new crater,
the crackling of the porous masses, and the bellowing
of the smoke-pouring summit, were sufficiently
appalling. Occasionally the boiling sulphur was
seen oozing from some little crevice, and the surface
which sustained my wayward footsteps, seemed
about to fall beneath them.

I approached near enough to the new crater to
inhale the sulphurous exhalations and become sensible
of its potent heat. In its immediate vicinity, where
the outer crust was broken, and the liquid flames roaring
and bursting through the aperture, several peasants
were moulding the glowing lava into coarse medallions,
as coolly as if at work over a forge. Having
breathed the suffocating air and roamed over the heated
scoriæ as long as prudence permitted, I began to
retrace my steps. My passage down the mountain
was wonderfully expeditious, as I almost slid upon
the fine ashes, and had only to guard against falling.
During the descent, and from the summit, the view was
surprisingly beautiful, comprising a complete panorama
of Naples, its unrivalled bay and adjacent
villages.

BAIæ.

Being again favoured with a remarkably fine day
for the season, I retraced my course to Pozzuoli,
and continued along the sea until I reached the
Lucrine lake, which is so near the water's edge that
a small connecting canal has been formed across the
road. Dismounting, I walked around this calm
and apparently shallow sheet of water, then threaded
a pleasant winding path, which finally brought me to
the lake of Avernus, upon the banks of which is the
Sybil's cave. I inspected, with an attention which
the scenery itself never would have elicited, the
scene so minutely described by Virgil, and said to
have suggested his idea of the infernal regions. I
next stopped at the ruins of Nero's villa, and especially
observed the vapour-baths below, formed by
the sea-water heated by the volcanic elements beneath
the bank, and thence sending up volumes of
saline and sulphurous steam. Through several crevices
this vapour escapes exteriorly, but its chief
outlet is into what originally constituted the subterraneous
apartments of the villa.

Continuing rapidly on our way to Baiæ, I descended

into the old dungeons of a Roman prison,
and visited the antique, arched and laboured reservoir
in its vicinity. I was thus soon in view of a
large expanse of water, separated from the Mediterranean
by a narrow and marshy fen, and bounded
on the right by a slightly declining hill, partially
cultivated—the Stygian lake and Elysian fields
of the great Mantuan! A promontory stretching
into the sea, and forming, in conjunction with the
land on which I stood, a small bay, is the port
Misenum. The paths leading to these sites, together
forming the whole landscape so minutely described
in the Enead, were worn by the pilgrimages of travellers.
The very children of the village knew my
purpose, and verbosely designated the localities.
What an indirect but indisputable testimony this to
truths, which many are fain theoretically to deny!
Many a hill and vale, many an extent of water and
tract of cultivated land of surpassing beauty, lie unadmired
amid the vastness of our continent; and yet
these localities, even when bereft of the flowery
accompaniments of spring, and undecked with the
golden splendours of autumn, are lingered over by
devotees of every country with an interest and sentiment
that nature's highest glories fail to inspire.
And all this because an ancient and beautiful poet
was wont to wander there, and is thought thence to
have derived many of his descriptive ideas. In truth,
where the master spirits of the earth have been, or
whatever spots their recorded thoughts have hallowed,
there is ever after an unfailing attraction to beings
of a like nature.

Returning, I examined the octangular brickwork
remain of the temple of Venus, and the more
perfect remnant of that of Neptune. Baiæ and its
vicinity were evidently favourite resorts of the old
Romans. Everywhere the foundations of a wall,
the archway of a subterranean apartment, or a broken
and crude mass of plastered brick-work, denote
the former existence of extensive buildings. The
Cumæen amphitheatre and lava-paved road were
passed on my way to Naples. The lovely and expansive
view from the garden above Virgil's tomb,
an excursion in the beautiful bay, and a few walks
amid the gaudiness, bustle and beggary of the city,
completed my experiences here. It is only in the
environs that we find that tranquil classic scenery
for which Italy is renowned. There, when balmy
weather prevails, every object breathes the quiet and
picturesque influence of antiquated art and hallowed
nature.