POMPEII AND VESUVIUS.
It is needless to write that no one can go to Naples without paying a
visit to Pompeii, if he would get a true idea of a Roman city, with its
streets, and shops, and baths, and forum, and temples; and it is as well
to read over Bulwer’s ‘Last Days of Pompeii’—that master work of genius,
compared with which our present popular novels are poor indeed—and then
let the reader spend an entire day, if he can, among the Pompeiian
remains, in the museum at Naples, which Garibaldi, when Dictator of
Naples, handed over to the people. Pompeii is easy of access by the
railway, which lands you at the very spot, after a short but pleasant
trip. Much can be accomplished there and back for a little more than
three francs. On Sundays Pompeii can be visited for nothing; on other
days the charge is one franc, and when you have paid the guide the franc,
I think you will agree with me that in no other part of the world can you
see so much that is truly wonderful at so small an expense. Close to the
gate are a hotel—the Hôtel du Diomede—and a restaurant, at either of
which you can get all the refreshments you require; and if it is too hot
to walk—and in the summer months Pompeii is a very hot place indeed—there
are chairs in the grounds in which you can be carried all round and see
all that is to be seen at very little personal fatigue.
Pompeii is spread out in an elliptical form on the brow of a hill, and
extends over a space of nearly two miles. On one side of you is
Vesuvius, and on the other the blue waters of the bay. One of the towns
through which you pass in the train is Portici, the ancient Herculaneum;
as it is, you are lost in wonder at the awful extent of the catastrophe
which turned all this smiling land into a scene of desolation and death,
and which, at any rate, led to the extinction of one philosophic
career—that of the elder Pliny, a real victim to the pursuit of knowledge
under difficulties. At the time of its visitation, Pompeii is reputed to
have had a population of about 26,000.
Imagination fails to realize the agony of the hour as the swift, black,
sulphurous death came down on all—the patrician in his marble halls, the
tradesman in his shop, the miser at his desk, the devotees who cried to
their gods for safety in vain, the slave, the freedman, the aged, to whom
life had nothing to give, the tender, the beautiful, the young, to whom
life seemed an exhaustless dream of joy. As in the days of the flood,
there was marrying and giving in marriage. Here the baker had fled, and
left his loaves in his oven; there was an eating-house, in which were
found raisins, olives, and fish cooked in oil. There stands the tavern,
indicated by the sign of the chequers, while the amphoræ of wines are
still marked with the year of the vintage. An election was going on at
the time of the catastrophe, and appeals to the free and independent are
still preserved. In one place a schoolboy has scratched his Greek
alphabet. In his sentry-box a sentinel was discovered, a grisly skeleton
clasping his rusty sword. And the streets tell a piteous tale. In one a
young man and woman had fallen together; in another part a lady was
discovered attempting to flee with a bag of gold, and then there was seen
the skeleton of a mother with her children, whom she was vainly seeking
to save. In the house of Diomede, or, rather, in a vaulted cellar
underneath, eighteen bodies were found of men and women who had evidently
fled there for shelter. The probable proprietor of the house was found
near the garden door, with the key in his hand, while beside him was a
slave with valuables. It is evident that the city was a scene of vice
and dissipation. Some of the inscriptions are too indecent to reproduce.
I know not whether for this it becomes us to point the finger of scorn,
we who read ‘Don Juan,’ who revel in Fielding, who reverence Dean Swift,
who know what goes on in Paris and London by night, when respectability
has gone to bed and Exeter Hall is shut up.
Let me turn to the streets—they are very narrow—and to the houses, which
strike me as generally very small. In that grand climate the people must
have mostly lived in the open air. One of the most elegant houses is
that of the Tragic Poet. On the threshold was a dog in mosaic, with the
inscription ‘Cave canem’—now in the museum at Naples. I was much
interested in the public baths, or thermæ, which indicate with how much
care the ancient Romans attended to cleanliness and health. They must
have been on a somewhat extensive scale. A passage leads to the chamber
for undressing. Beyond this is the cold bath. Thence we make our way to
the warm bath, or tepidarium. The baths also possessed an extensive
colonnade, now converted into a garden, besides several other chambers
and baths for women, none of which are now open to the public. But we
see wonders everywhere, in spite of the fact that all that is best in
Pompeii has been moved to the museum at Naples, where remains one of the
finest of the Pompeiian mosaics—that representing a battle between Darius
and Alexander, which no one who wishes to have a competent idea of
ancient art should avoid going to see. Let me add that no visitor should
go to Pompeii without having first got a clear idea of what he is going
to see. The guides are but poor helps, as mostly they speak nothing but
Italian. Further, let me say that if you have at Naples only the day
allowed by the Orient Company, while waiting for the overland mails,
which generally reach Naples in a little over two days and nights after
leaving London, your best plan is to get hold of Cook’s agent, who
reaches the ship in a boat with a flag bearing the well-known name. He
will take you off, drive you straight to Pompeii, give you time to ‘do’
the place and to get a good lunch there, and bring you back in time to
the ship to pursue the even tenor of your way to Egypt, or Ceylon, or
Australia, as the case may be. If you have time, pursue your studies by
a day in the museum, or more if you can. It is there you can realize
best, as you study the grand statues of great men and women and gods and
goddesses, the Diana of Ephesus being one of them—statues in which the
‘Majesty of human passion
Is to the life expressed’—
[Picture: Temple of Venus, Pompeii. (From a photograph by Fradelle and
Young.)]
what men the world’s masters were. Nero has a shocking head; Caligula
looks an empty-headed fop; but I gazed admiringly on the grand features
of my guide, philosopher, and friend—Marcus Aurelius. And I thought of
Voltaire, as I stood opposite the noble statue of Julius Cæsar, on your
left just as you enter the museum. Voltaire tells us men may be divided
into two classes—hammers and anvils. Julius Cæsar evidently belonged to
the former class. It was there, too, I saw a Venus, radiant in innocence
and beauty and sweetness and grace, as if new ‘bathed in Paphian
foam’—the only Venus I ever could have loved. But I had no guide-book,
and the day was hot, and all the attendants were fast asleep.
Let me add a caution: Never change money if you can help it. You are
sure to get a bad franc if you do. At Pompeii the guide tried it on with
me. Again, while waiting for the train at Pompeii, I was tempted to have
a deal with a pedlar, who asked me ten francs for souvenirs, which I
subsequently bought, after a good deal of haggling, for five.
Unfortunately, I had only a ten-franc note, and he had to give me
change—not in coppers, as they generally do in Naples, where silver is
scarce, but in francs; and one of them was bad, as I found out when I
went to the museum next day. To my disgust, the civil gentleman who
takes the money kindly cut it in two.
‘I will call for you at a quarter-past seven,’ said Cook’s agent to me,
as he left the _Ormuz_.
‘Come at that hour,’ I replied; ‘I will be ready.’
Alas! man proposes—often in vain. I went to bed early. I had made
arrangements for an early meal. I had agreed to see that a
fellow-passenger who was to come should be ready; but I could not
sleep—the heat in the bay was too great, the odour of the tide-less
waters seemed to possess my soul, and as I lay awake all the chronic
diseases by which I am borne down reasserted themselves, and I didn’t get
a wink of sleep till just as it was time to get up. I have an early
breakfast, and yet there is no sign of Cook’s agent. In due time I see
him, and my friend and I and Cook’s agent are rowed on shore, and we
drive to Cook’s headquarters. There we are put into a carriage drawn by
three horses, and away we go along the crowded streets. What a display
we have on every side of the unwashed, as they sit at the shop doors, or
at the corners of the long narrow alleys in which most of them live!
There are naked children, hideous old women, and very unlovely young
ones. A fat priest passes with his beaver hat and black robes, and a
young woman rushes at him and kisses his hand. The priest and the
militaire are to be seen everywhere. No wonder the country is poor.
As we proceed the ground begins to rise, and we see pleasant villas with
decent gardens. As we rise so does the dust; for mostly we are shut in
between two walls, over which we see the vine hang heavily, or apricots
glitter among the green branches on either side. Here and there is a
break in the wall, and, seated at rustic tables, peasants and their
families are enjoying a holiday, looking under their vine arbours across
the blue bay or pleasant Capri, or glancing upward at the smoking
mountain above. At one of these wayside publics our driver stops to
water horses, which are useful animals, and, in spite of the heat, never
turn a hair. We enter the principal room, at one end of which is a big
bed, while nearer the door is a table with wine and glasses, and fruit,
and specimens of lava and other matters. My friend, with the
recklessness of youth, spends his money. I refuse to do anything of the
kind; and again our coachman urges on his wild career. He pulls up again
as a woman rushes out of her cabin to offer us drink. Again we are
tempted, and in vain. Then we reach a level of reeds and rushes, where
resides a venerable and unwashed hermit, who sighs as he turns in and
thinks of the hardness of our hearts. We are now nearly out of the
cultivated land, as we see the gigantic fields of lava on every side;
where it can all have come from is a mystery. You can scarcely realize
how all this lava—stretched on every hand, far and wide—can ever have
come out of that crater. There seems more lava than you could get into
the mountain itself; and how terrible must have been the scene when the
red-hot lava rushed down the mountain-side, overwhelming green vines, and
square-roofed huts, and living animals, and smiling babes, and weak and
helpless old age! As it cooled, it seems to have wreathed itself into a
thousand fantastic shapes—and yet the scene is fair and tranquil. A
small wreath of smoke at the top only suggests a feeble fire within, and
down far below the blue Mediterranean sleeps, and gay Naples sparkles,
and the great Campagna opens up its vast green solitudes, save where,
here and there, a white-stoned villa varies its monotony. Around me
animal life exists not. The yellow birch blooms in her golden beauty,
that is all, and the common white butterfly of England has the upper airs
all to herself.
As we reach the observatory—an oasis in the desert—we meet a couple of
sportsmen; they have a gun between them, though why I cannot understand,
as I see nothing to shoot at but lizards, and so we are drawn slowly on
the dusty road, which zigzags in the most wonderful manner every few
yards. We enter through a gateway which, I presume, marks the bounds of
the Cook territory, as one of his agents takes a look at our tickets.
With joy our brown-faced coachman points us to a white, flat-roofed
building, which he declares truly is the hotel, where he intimates we can
have lunch, and where he intimates he can do the same if we will supply
the cash—which we do, though he had no right to ask it—and weaned and
parched we enter the grateful portals of the hotel to feast, and to enjoy
a refreshing breeze, which we should have sought for in Naples in vain.
As I rested there, I felt no wish to depart either upwards or downwards.
Of course the summer is the bad time for the crater. In the season Cook
has his pilgrims, sometimes to the number of 200 a day. The cars are
airy and light. As one goes up, another descends, and thus the work goes
on under the care of an able German, who caught a fever in Egypt, and has
been ordered here for the benefit of his health. The whole country
should be called Cooksland. It is there John Cook reigns supreme. Just
as I was leaving London a Leicester gentleman said to me: ‘I wonder Mr.
Gladstone did not make John Cook a baronet.’ ‘The man who does what Mr.
Cook does, for all travellers, whatever their nationality, surely
deserves public recognition,’ says a commercial Dutchman to me as I
write; ‘I am off to Palermo and Catana and Messina. I have taken Cook’s
tickets for all the way.’
I found in my subsequent travels every one of us had more or less to
enjoy the assistance of Cook’s agents. In many cases travellers derive
great pecuniary benefit from doing so. I remember a friend of mine got
some money changed for him by Cook’s agent on very much cheaper terms
than he could anywhere else.
Italy is a poor country; yet it displays a sense of humour highly
creditable under the circumstances. The site of the Custom House in
Naples is locally known as the Immaculate.