FRESH DIGGINGS AT POMPEII--VESUVIUS “WORKING”--THE TELL-TALE
SEISMOGRAPH--SOLFATARA.
It seems odd to speak of a dead city as a growing one. But that is
exactly the case with Pompeii. There are many cities in Italy that
do not grow half as fast as the one buried by the ashes of Vesuvius
eighteen hundred years ago. A person visiting it at intervals of a
year notices a marked enlargement of its boundaries. The Italians are
the champion diggers. They make the shovel fly when they attack the
grave of Pompeii. We saw a gang of them at work there. A government
overseer watched them like a hawk. He wanted to be sure that they
pocketed no jewelry, coins, or objects of art or utility yielded by
the excavations. The only produce of their toil in that line, as we
stood by, was a bit of iron, which the guide called a hinge, and the
fragment of a small marble column. The spades, busily plied, were
gradually bringing to light a beautiful house. The floors were mosaic,
with simple but graceful designs in scroll-pattern--nearly as fresh
of color as if laid yesterday. The walls bore frescoes of fainter
tints--grinning masks, fauns, Cupids, birds, fish, and fruit. It had
evidently been the home of a well-to-do citizen of Pompeii. The nervous
movements of the workmen betrayed their anxiety. They were hoping at
every moment to make a valuable “find.” Perhaps they might hit upon
a great iron chest--studded with round knobs like a boiler--and full
of gold, money, or ornaments; or they might strike another wonder in
marble or bronze; or they might be startled by coming suddenly upon a
skull or other human remains. In the latter event the work is suspended
till a careful inspection is made. The responsible and intelligent
person in charge proceeds to ascertain if the dead Pompeiian has left
a mold of himself or herself in the plastic ashes. If so, he prepares
a mixture of plaster-of-Paris, breaks a hole in the crust and slowly
pours in the liquid till the mold is full. When it has hardened, the
casting is tenderly removed. Lo! there is a rough image, showing
some poor creature in the agonies of death, prone on the floor, face
downward.
Thus, most usually, were the inhabitants of the doomed city caught by
the destroying angel. The skull, or leg, or arm, or whatever other part
of the skeleton has not relapsed into its original dust, may attach
itself to the plaster cast in the proper place, or may require to be
joined on by a pardonable “restoration.” In either case the effect is
thrilling in its horrible reality. Nothing in painting or sculpture can
shock the beholder more than these self-produced and truthful statues
exhibited in the museum, which is the first and most interesting
thing shown to visitors. But, though neither gold nor silver, nor the
minutest scrap of a skeleton, nor anything else of importance was
unearthed for my benefit, I quitted the new excavations with reluctance
to examine those parts of Pompeii with which the world is already
familiar through the medium of books and pictures. I found myself quite
at home in the bakery, the wine-shop, at the oil-merchant’s, at the
houses of Pansa, of Sallust, of the “tragic poet,” and the rest. The
high stepping-stones across the streets looked familiar, as if I had
trodden them before. The deep ruts cut by the carts as they groaned up
the hill, coming from ancient Stabia, were like friendly landmarks. So
fully have literature and art made us acquainted with this disinterred
city.
The guide tells me that only about one third of Pompeii has yet been
uncovered. I take his word for it. He is also of the opinion that the
best parts of the city have already been dug out. He evidently wishes
that the work would stop. He is very human in this, for he finds it
tiresome to show people about the present Pompeii. Treble its size,
and his labor would be threefold. And he is forbidden to accept money.
But I imagine that this very stern prohibition does not prevent some
persons from offering him quantities, quite privately, or him from
accepting them. It may be true, as our guide insists, that the temples,
forums, baths, theatres, and fine houses now above-ground surpass
anything of the kind that may hereafter be discovered at Pompeii.
But the Italian Government is not disposed to take that for granted.
Liberal sums are yearly appropriated to push on the work. It bears
fruits. A new temple or amphitheatre may not be struck every year,
but something is constantly being turned up to instruct the world in
the manners and customs of the old Romans, so well reflected in the
representative city of Pompeii. Of bronze or stone statues, household
implements, and tools of trades, the yield is immense and steady. These
may be counted by the thousand in the splendid museum at Naples. One
can see so many articles of luxury and use exactly similar to those
he buys nowadays, that he is fain to pause and try to remember what
besides the steam-engine, the photograph, and the electric telegraph,
we moderns have invented. There being no more room at Naples to store
these treasures, the excess of them is huddled together in the
courtyards and houses of Pompeii herself. It is estimated that, at the
present rate, this mine of antiquities will not be worked out in fifty
years.
Vesuvius is the most deceptive of mountains. We know how treacherous
and cruel he is. But as we see him gently smoking, in the haze of this
soft, enervating atmosphere, we think him very much maligned. The
chimney of a well-regulated house could not be steadier of behavior.
His sides look sleek in the distance. One would never suspect that all
that brown softness is lava, fifty feet deep, and covering thousands
of acres. When I ascended the volcano, I realized how illusory are
impressions when formed afar off. After traversing Portici and Resina
(old Herculaneum), the carriage climbed a steep slope between country
villas with “plenty of fruit and shade,” as the advertisement of a
country-house to let would say. Presently a sharp turn in the road
brought me face to face with the head of a lava-stream which had been
mercifully stayed at that point years ago. The road had been cut
through it, showing its depth, and that was enough to have buried
in its path any of the villas I had seen below. From this point on
to the station of the Funicular Railway the road for the most part
passes between gray-black walls of lava, the tops of which are curled
like waves or twisted into capricious spiral forms, and then forever
stilled. Not a flower or blade of grass grows there, except in crevices
where dust may have fallen and the wind has scattered seeds.
The desolation, mile after mile, is oppressive to behold. One
seeks relief by looking back over the blue Mediterranean and the
reddish-white cities of the plain. Or else he looks ahead and up to
Vesuvius, whose terrible majesty now begins to appear. I now see that
where the sea of lava ends the ashes begin. The vapor, which seemed
to curl so peacefully and thinly, from the standpoint of Naples,
is mounting to the sky in a great volume, and whirling as if in a
cyclone. One imagines a roar as that hot steam rushes from the crater.
He sees specks tossed into the air. These are stones flung aloft two
hundred to three hundred feet, and dropped back into the yawning pit
to be presently ejected again. He has been told that Vesuvius is a
little more active than usual. He can now readily understand of what
frightful deeds the volcano is capable when in the maddest humor. Not
only all the little cities near his base, which have been rebuilt in
the childlike faith that they will never again be destroyed, but proud
Naples, which has so far been spared, are at his mercy.
After I had ascended by railway to a nearer view of the monster, and
completed my acquaintance with him as far as it was safe, familiarity
did not lessen my respect for his power. It seemed impudently
inquisitive for a party of tiny mortals to be throwing stones into his
enormous mouth, poking canes into his ribs and stirring up the red fire
there, and laughing as the dense, sulphurous fumes rose in our faces.
The guides roasted eggs for us, and we ate them with a pinch of salt,
chucking the shells into the crater, which answered back with a shower
of red-hot stones. These luckily missed their mark. I incline to think
that some of the fun made by our company of visitors was like whistling
to keep up one’s courage; for I noticed that the noisiest of them clung
hard to the guides and gave a wide berth to the crater’s edge, and
looked most pleased when the signal was given to return. Just as we
started on the downward path, Vesuvius made a noise between a sob and a
shriek, and belched forth a farewell volley of stones, which might have
spoiled some hats, and even heads, if they had been shot accurately.
For the information of those who have never ascended Vesuvius but hope
to do so some day, I add that the trip by carriage from Naples is
three and one-half hours long to the foot of the Funicular Railway.
Thence to the upper station is a ride of twelve minutes, by a line
much resembling that of Mount Washington or the Righi, in ease and
safety. From there to the top of the crater is a steep climb of fifteen
or twenty-five minutes, according to the age and wind of the climber.
Persons with weak lungs or shaky legs, or in any respect infirm, should
not attempt the latter feat. For them is provided the _chaise-porte_.
Two strong young fellows carry this like a bier--their customer sitting
composedly (unless he or she is badly scared) in the chair which is
swung in the middle of two long poles. The bearers are like goats in
sure-footedness, strength, and agility. It is wonderful to see them
pick their way among the huge, jagged pieces of smoking lava and up the
steep slope of hot ashes, ankle-deep, without slipping. In an hour one
may do reasonable justice to the cone and crater, and in two hours and
a half more be back in Naples.
On my way down the mountain I profited by a little spare time to do
what most tourists omit: I visited the observatory. This building is
securely placed on a spur of Vesuvius where the lava-wave parts in
its destructive course. Here dwell day and night, all the year round,
an accomplished scientist and an able staff, whose duty it is to note
all the phenomena of eruptions and earthquakes. In reality most of the
work is done for them by instruments of almost inconceivable delicacy
and precision, and they have only to keep these in perfect order. This
exquisite automatic apparatus reports everything the world wants to
know about earthquakes except their cause. They give the direction of
the movement, its speed and intensity and duration. Though the man
who climbs to the crater does not observe the faintest throb beneath
his feet when the volcano is most active, there is a little tell-tale
machine down in the observatory which vibrates passionately at that
precise moment. It is not at rest five minutes together during the
whole day. If the motion of the trembling is horizontal, then a hollow
brass ball swings toward the north, south, east, and west, as the case
may be. This indicates unerringly the direction of the earthquake-wave.
If the motion is vertical, then a spiral coil of fine wire visibly
shortens and springs back again. Every discharge of stones from the
crater above causes an extraordinary agitation of the wire. You see the
shower and the sympathetic action of this sensitive coil at the same
instant. The director invites you to dance a jig on the floor, within a
foot of the wire, to show that its movements correspond only to actual
tremblings of old Mother Earth. You do so, jumping as high as you can.
But the apparatus makes no sign. The heavy rumbling of a wagon in the
road outside does not disturb it. The “seismograph,” as it is called,
does only the work for which it was designed. The director, however,
was good enough to switch off its connection from the bowels of the
earth to my pulse. No doctor with hand on wrist could have counted the
beats more accurately. They were more regular than those of Vesuvius,
if not quite as fierce. Out of the millions of observations taken here
in the course of years, it is hoped that some time an exact science of
earthquakes may be constructed, with possible usefulness to mankind.
For three or four days before the appalling calamity in Ischia (just
off this coast) in 1883, all the apparatus of the observatory was
greatly excited. Something frightful was brewing. That was evident to
the watchers up there. The world knows the result. If it could have
been foretold in time to save hundreds of lives on that unhappy island,
that would indeed have been a triumph of science.
At the center of the old volcanic district west of Naples is the great
crater of Solfatara, not yet quite extinct. Eight centuries ago it
was active and destructive; now it is full of stunted bushes and tall
grass. The sulphurous vapor rising from a hole about three feet in
diameter, on one side of the vast bowl, shows that a fire still burns
in its bosom. One can not see the red-hot lava in the crevices, as on
Vesuvius. But if the hand is held in the ascending steam for a moment,
a scalding heat is felt. The guide who conducted me about the crater
actually crawled into this hole at a point where it could be entered
horizontally. To escape suffocation he covered his mouth with his hand
and kept close to the ground. After about a minute of anxiety on my
part, he returned with fine specimens of sulphuric deposits exactly
like those I had seen fringing some of the chinks in the burning flank
of Vesuvius. The offensive smell and acrid taste of the vapor which
poured forth incessantly from this subterranean passage were the same
that make an ascent of the Vesuvian cone so trying to many persons.
The guide assured me that the connection between Solfatara and the
great volcano on the Bay of Naples was intimate and instant. Whenever
Vesuvius is inactive, Solfatara “works” quite fiercely. Whenever
Vesuvius is very active, Solfatara is disappointing. It would seem from
this statement that, though the mountains are miles apart, they both
communicate with a common reservoir of molten matter.
There is no certainty that Solfatara will not break out again. There
have been periods of centuries between the eruptions of Vesuvius; and
it is a recorded fact that at times its crater has been lined inside
with foliage, so reduced was its capacity for mischief. As there is
no present prospect that tourists can descend in safety to the floor
of its crater and study minutely the phenomena which can not be fairly
seen from the rim, they should not fail to visit Solfatara. They will
not burn the soles of their boots, and yet they can, if they please,
roast eggs by digging down about a foot in places indicated by the
guide. They can realize the thinness of the crust over which they walk
by raising a large stone and throwing it down violently. The ground
gives back a hollow sound. It is true that Solfatara does not eject
red-hot stones, even the smallest. But that is a point in its favor,
enabling the visitor to look on with a sense of perfect safety. There
is but one Vesuvius. No other volcano is as accessible, or offers
as many advantages for all kinds of observations. But if one is at
Naples, and does not care to incur the fatigue or other discomforts of
an ascent of Vesuvius, Solfatara is a good substitute excursion and
is hereby recommended; and, as something supplementary to the greater
event, it is also of much interest.