I.

THE EXHUMED CITY.

THE ANTIQUE LANDSCAPE--THE HISTORY OF POMPEII BEFORE AND AFTER
ITS DESTRUCTION.--HOW IT WAS BURIED AND EXHUMED.--WINKELMANN AS A
PROPHET.--THE EXCAVATIONS IN THE REIGN OF CHARLES III., OF MURAT,
AND OF FERDINAND.--THE EXCAVATIONS AS THEY NOW ARE.--SIGNOR
FIORELLI.--APPEARANCE OF THE RUINS.--WHAT IS AND WHAT IS NOT FOUND
THERE.


A railroad runs from Naples to Pompeii. Are you alone? The trip occupies
one hour, and you have just time enough to read what follows, pausing
once in a while to glance at Vesuvius and the sea; the clear, bright
waters hemmed in by the gentle curve of the promontories; a bluish coast
that approaches and becomes green; a green coast that withdraws into the
distance and becomes blue; Castellamare looming up, and Naples receding.
All these lines and colors existed too at the time when Pompeii was
destroyed: the island of Prochyta, the cities of Baiæ, of Bauli, of
Neapolis, and of Surrentum bore the names that they retain. Portici was
called Herculaneum; Torre dell'Annunziata was called Oplontes;
Castellamare, Stabiæ; Misenum and Minerva designated the two extremities
of the gulf. However, Vesuvius was not what it has become; fertile and
wooded almost to the summit, covered with orchards and vines, it must
have resembled the picturesque heights of Monte San Angelo, toward which
we are rolling. The summit alone, honeycombed with caverns and covered
with black stones, betrayed to the learned a volcano "long extinct." It