badness is to be found among the hackmen of Naples. They will lie
with the most unblushing impudence; and if they receive any future
punishment for telling untruths, their roasting will be perpetual. The
day before our journey to Pompeii, we had chartered a carriage to take
us to the Sibyl’s Cave, and the other curiosities in the neighborhood
of Pozzuoli. We made a positive bargain with the driver, including the
amount which he was to receive as drink money. I believe we were to
pay twenty francs for the carriage, and two francs for drink money.
When we returned and were settling the bill, he swore by all the
saints in the calendar,—and he named every one of them,—that we agreed
to pay thirty francs for the carriage, and ten francs for drink money.
He took his hat from his head in his rage, and threw it upon the
ground, pulled his hair, and made things in general very unpleasant.
He called several unwashed Neapolitans to witness that no carriage
was ever hired at a lower rate than the one which he insisted was our
contract price.
We found that we could not reason with him; and so we lighted our
cigars, and waited for his paroxysm of rage to come to an end. We
finally compromised the matter by paying twenty-five francs for the
whole business; that is, we compromised by handing him the money, and
walking away. He followed us two or three blocks; in fact, he stuck to
us until we entered our hotel, and there we lost sight of him.
The hackman who was to take us to the buried city might have been
useful, but certainly he was not ornamental. He was covered with dust,
so that he resembled a walking ash-heap; and as for washing, I do not
think he had ever experienced its terrors. Judging by the odor which
arose from his skin, he had been put through some embalming process,
in which garlic was the preservative substance. He resembled a sponge
which has been dipped in garlic water, and kept without squeezing. His
clothing was of all sizes except his own. His trousers were made for
a man twice as large as he; and his coat for one of about half his
dimensions. His face was as prepossessing as a basket of old bottles;
and as for his manners, he did not appear to have any to boast of.
I spoke to him in French, which he pretended to understand, but could
not comprehend. He answered in a mingled _patois_ of French and
Italian, in which there was no French to speak of, and very little
Italian. I forget the exact sum we agreed to pay, but think it was
altogether about twenty-five francs.
I may as well explain here, that on our way back we invented a new
plan for paying him, and at the same time avoiding trouble. When we
neared the hotel on our return, I counted out the money in francs
and half francs, and threw in a few copper coins by way of adding to
the confusion. With the proper amount in my hand, I stepped from the
carriage, and waited until my three companions were a dozen yards
away; then I dropped the money into the hands of the driver, and
started at a rapid walk to overtake my friends. Before he had finished
counting the money we were inside of the hotel. As we walked up
stairs, I heard a volley of Neapolitan and French oaths following us
into the building, and rolling through the hall like a small cloud of
smoke.
We started from Naples in the direction of Vesuvius, passing through
several villages on our road to Pompeii. The road was excellent, being
paved or macadamized the entire distance, and ornamented with houses
and beggars in about equal proportions.
[Sidenote: PERTINACIOUS BEGGARS.]
The beggars deserve great credit for the study they have devoted to
the perfection of their art. Sores are cultivated as a handsome man
would cultivate his mustache; and as for a withered leg, it is worth a
fortune to its possessor. Every time our carriage halted, the beggars
surrounded it, as flies in July surround a lump of sugar, and pretty
nearly for the same reason, as they wanted something on which to
exist. They accosted us in two or three languages, Italian of course
predominating. We told them, in French, in English, and in German, to
go away, and that we would give them nothing; but they stuck to us
with the most unruffled pertinacity. They had heard all that before,
and knew that if they were adhesive, they had a good prospect of
extracting something. I tried a new plan on them, and found that it
worked well.
Assuming an air of great indignation, and with as much severity in
my face as I could command, I addressed them very loudly, with my
hands extended, in Russian and Chinese. Those languages were new to
them, and fearing that it was some horrid imprecation, several of
them dropped away. I afterwards found the plan quite successful, not
only with Italian beggars, but with beggars of every nation. Tell
them in any language to which they are accustomed, that you will give
them nothing, and, if you are so minded, consign them to the infernal
regions, and they do not mind it; but if you assume a priestly
attitude, and utter something very solemnly in a language they do not
understand, you have a fair prospect of getting rid of them.
[Sidenote: BEGGING AS A SCIENCE.]
At one place, on the road to Pompeii, there is a small hill. From
the foot to the summit the distance is not more than one to two
hundred feet; but the slope is so steep, that horses, in ascending
it, do not travel faster than a walk. At the foot of this hill,
four beggars—middle-aged women—were located; and they evidently had
purchased a monopoly, or possibly a grant from government for the
possession of the spot. In front of a small wine shop they had erected
a pavilion, and each of them had a comfortable chair. They watched the
place, and attended closely to business during the entire day. When
they saw a carriage approaching, they left their chairs, and proceeded
to the road, adhering closely to the vehicle until it reached the
top of the hill. They begged persistently until they received what
they demanded, or the top of the hill was reached. Then they returned
leisurely to their chairs, and waited for the next customer.
If there was but a single carriage at a time, all of them worked it.
If there were two carriages, the beggars divided into couples; and if
by any chance there were four carriages together, the professionals
scattered, and each of them took a vehicle. I drove out on this road
several times, and always found it begged by the same persons. I
proposed one day to my friends to engage five carriages, and drive
them out there together. I thought that we might kill the beggars
by causing them to die of grief and rage at seeing a carriage pass
without being able to annoy its occupants.
[Sidenote: MAKING MACARONI.]
Another object of interest along the road, and closely associated
with the beggars, is the manufacture of macaroni. I did not enter the
houses to see how the stuff was made; but I saw great quantities of it
drying on frames in front of the places of its manufacture. One of my
companions, who had witnessed the process, said they made macaroni by
putting some dough around a long hole, and letting it dry.
He said the holes did not cost anything, and the dough was not
expensive. “And that is the reason,” said he, “why the confounded
stuff is so cheap.”
I was rather fond of macaroni as an article of diet; and my friend
advised me, if I wished to continue so, to remain in blissful
ignorance of the manner of its preparation, and not to ask any
questions.
I took his advice, and to this day do not know much about the process.
One thing in connection with macaroni, which amused me much, was the
dexterity of the chickens in eating it.
A string of macaroni in its soft state, four or five feet long, is
hung across a horizontal bar in such a way that the ends are a foot
or so from the ground. The frames look like candle-moulds, with
freshly moulded candles hanging from them. The macaroni, as it hangs,
is pretty thick, there being just space enough between the sticks to
allow them to dry. When the stuff is soft, chickens can easily eat it.
As it hangs from the frames, these birds would get beneath them, and
bite off the ends of the perpendicular sticks.
The young chickens were rather awkward; but the old hens and roosters
were very successful. I watched one venerable old cock under a frame,
and studied his performance. He elevated his head as if he were
peering through a gun barrel up to the sky. He took careful aim, and
then jumped upwards, with his mouth open. The soft macaroni went
down his throat a couple of inches or so, as a sausage might go down
the throat of a terrier; and at the exact instant when his head was
highest, he closed his bill, and nipped off the morsel. I saw him take
half a dozen bites in that way, and he did not miss his mark a single
time in the whole performance.
We had pleasant glimpses of the Bay of Naples, though not as many as
we could have wished on account of the height of the fences. After a
drive of something more than an hour, we reached the gate of Pompeii.
Dismounting from our carriage, and paying two francs to the custodian,
we entered the ancient city.
[Sidenote: DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII.]
Pompeii was violently shaken by an earthquake in the year 63. Several
temples tumbled down along with the colonnade of the Forum. The
theatres and many tombs and houses were also overthrown. Nearly every
family went from the place; and it was some time before they returned.
The senate hesitated for some time whether to rebuild the city or
not, and finally decided to do so. The work of rebuilding was going
on quite vigorously, when all at once came the terrible eruption of
79. It buried Pompeii under a deluge of stones and ashes, and buried
Herculaneum under lava and liquid mud.
These cities and many villages were wiped out in a single day, and a
large region of country was depopulated. After the catastrophe, some
of the inhabitants returned, and made excavations for recovering their
valuables. Some robbers also crept into the city. The Emperor Titus
entertained the idea of cleaning and restoring the city, and sent
two senators to examine the ground; but the magnitude of the work
frightened the government, and the restoration was never undertaken.
In time Pompeii became almost forgotten, and its site was lost. For
more than a dozen centuries the locality where Pompeii had stood was
unknown.
In 1748, under the reign of Charles III., when the discovery of
Herculaneum had attracted the attention of the world to that locality,
some vine-dressers struck upon some old walls, and unearthed a few
statues. The king ordered some excavations to be made in the vicinity;
but it was not until eight years later that any one supposed that
they were exhuming Pompeii. Since that time the work of excavation
has gone on with a great many intervals of inactivity. Whenever the
government makes an appropriation, or some crowned head or other
wealthy personage makes an addition to the Pompeian fund, the work is
prosecuted; but as soon as the money is expended the work stops.
It is now more than a hundred years since the excavation began, and
the third part of the city is not yet uncovered.
Since 1860, the whole system of work and management has been reformed,
and moralized, as it were. All the guides and door-keepers are under
the control of the government.
The visitor pays two francs at the gate, and is guided about the
city by a man clad in uniform. Notices are posted in all the modern
languages, telling visitors not to give money to the guides under any
pretence whatever, and forbidding the guides to receive the money.
This is all very well as far as it goes; but human ingenuity is able
to get around the rule.
[Sidenote: DODGING A REGULATION.]
We had a guide who spoke French fluently, and was a very polite and
agreeable fellow. He took pains to call our attention to one of the
signs, and assured us that he could not receive a penny under any
circumstances. But at almost every step he had photographs to sell.
Whenever we found anything particularly interesting, out from his
pocket came a package of photographs, and of course we purchased. By
the time we had finished our journey, we had bought photographs enough
to stock a small store; and the profit on the transaction was probably
six times as much as the guide would have wrung from us had the old
system been in vogue. It is very evident that the government winks at
this transaction; otherwise the guides would not be allowed to sell
photographs or anything else.
We walked through streets silent and deserted, except by groups of
visitors like ourselves, and the occasional patrolmen or guides.
We walked on the pavement where, two thousand years ago, chariots
rolled along, and we saw on those pavements the marks of the chariot
wheels as plainly as if they had been worn during the past month.
At the drinking fountains on the street corners, we could see where
the Pompeian stopped when he was thirsty. The stone at the orifice,
whence the water poured out, was worn away by the many applications of
Pompeian lips.
[Sidenote: SCENES IN THE STREET.]
We looked into the ovens as they were on the day of the eruption.
The bakers were preparing their store of bread, and we were shown
the loaves which had been drawn from those ovens after resting there
eighteen hundred years. We saw the shops of the wine merchants, the
butchers, the bakers, and the men of other occupations.
We saw the names that had been painted on the door-posts, a little
faded and dull, yet still legible. We sat down on benches which
were unoccupied for seventeen hundred years; and we entered the
dwelling-houses where, two thousand years ago, the members of the
family passed their daily life. It was a picture of the past, and not
of the present.
Pompeii was preserved, and not destroyed. To its inhabitant, on the
day of the eruption it was destroyed; but for us who now look upon it,
and study its history, it has been preserved.
The most complete bakery in Pompeii was in Herculaneum Street, and
occupied an entire house.
The inner court-yard of the house contains four mills of curious
construction. At a little distance they resemble hour-glasses. Imagine
two large blocks of stone in the shape of cones, the upper one overset
upon the lower, and you have their construction.
The lower one remained motionless, and the other was turned either
by a man or a donkey. The grain was crushed between the two stones.
Sometimes the servants of the establishment turned the mill. At other
times slaves, for some misdemeanor, had their eyes put out, and then
they were sent to work at grinding.
The story goes that, sometimes, when the millers were short of hands,
they established bathing-houses around their mills, and the passers
by who were caught in the trap had to work the mill. In the
establishment now referred to, the machinery was turned, not by men,
but by a mule, whose bones were found lying near. In the stable of the
mule the racks and troughs were standing. Near the bake-ovens were the
troughs where the dough was kneaded.
There was one oven which remained uninjured. It had two openings; the
loaves went into one of these, in the shape of dough, and were taken
out at the other opening baked. Everything seemed to be in a fine
state of preservation, and the oven could be made use of again for a
repetition of its work of eighteen centuries ago.
[Illustration: DISCOVERY OF LOAVES OF BREAD BAKED 1800 YEARS AGO, AT
POMPEII.]
[Sidenote: STALE BREAD.]
The oven when found was full of bread. Some of the loaves were stamped
to indicate that they were of wheat flour, and others to indicate that
they were of bran flour. The oven had been carefully sealed, and there
were no ashes in it. Eighty-one loaves were found in it, a little
stale, to be sure, and very hard and black, but lying in the same
order in which they were placed on the 23d of November in the year 79.
The loaves weighed about a pound each. They are round, depressed in
the centre, raised on the edges, and divided into eight lobes. Imagine
an American pie which has been marked with the knife as if for cutting
before it is placed in the oven, and you have an almost exact picture
of a Pompeian loaf of bread. I did not try to eat it, partly because
I prefer my bread fresh, and partly because the loaves are considered
too precious to be given or sold to visitors.
Whoever goes to Pompeii thinking to find a perfect city will be very
much disappointed.
The ruins of Pompeii, as the old lady said about the ruins of the
Coliseum, are very much out of repair. The walls of the buildings
are mostly standing, but the roofs and doors, which were constructed
of wood, are gone, having rotted away in their long exposure to the
moisture. Everything whatever, of wood, planks, or beams, was turned
to ashes: all is uncovered, and there are no roofs to be seen.
Almost everywhere you walk under the open sky; everything is open, and
if a shower were to come on, you would hardly find shelter. Imagine
yourself in a city in process of building with only the first stories
completed, and with no floorings for the second.
[Sidenote: ART IN POMPEII.]
Many of the statues and works of art have been carried to the Museum
at Naples, so that in the old city itself, there are, comparatively,
few curiosities of a portable character. The sky, the landscape, the
sea-shore, the walls and the pavements are antique, and it is only
the visitors and their guides that are modern. The streets are not
repaired, the sidewalks are not changed, and we walk upon the same
stones that were formerly trodden by the feet of the Pompeian merchant
and his slave.
As we enter these narrow streets we can almost think we are quitting
the century we live in, and going back to the century that witnessed
the birth of Christ.
When first uncovered, the paintings of the walls were as fresh as
though they were made but a week ago, the ashes having preserved them
perfectly. In a few weeks or months their coloring fades, and they
become dingy and hardly visible.
The Pompeians were great lovers of art; every wall is frescoed, and
the mosaics on the floors are an interesting study. Statues adorn
the interior of the dwellings, and abound in the public places: even
the ordinary utensils of the kitchen were fashioned in a remarkable
manner, and far more artistic than those of the present day. The most
ordinary utensils of the household are specimens of art that evoke the
admiration of every beholder.
As one walks through Pompeii he sees much to tell him that advertising
is not altogether an invention of the present age. Placards and
posters enlivened the streets; the walls were covered with them; and
in many places there were whitewashed patches of wall, serving for
the announcements which the writers wished to make public. These
panels were dedicated entirely to the public business, and anybody had
the right to paint upon them, in delicate and slender letters, the
advertisements which we now find in the columns of the newspapers.
[Sidenote: ADVERTISING IN THE OLDEN TIME.]
Many of these announcements were of a political character, such as
proclamations of candidates for public office. Pompeii was evidently
swallowed up just before an election. In reading the posters you will
find that sometimes it was a noble, sometimes a group of citizens,
and sometimes a corporation of tradesmen, who recommended some one
to the office of _ædile_ or _duumvir_. Thus Paratus nominates Pansa;
Philippus nominates Caius; Felix, and Valentinus, and his associates
prefer Sabinus. Sometimes the elector was in a hurry, and asked to
have his candidate chosen quickly. Sometimes a dozen guilds, such
as the fruiterers, the porters, the mule drivers, the salt makers,
carpenters, and others, united to urge the election of somebody.
Rather curiously, we found on some of these placards that the sleepers
declared their preference for somebody, and it puzzled us to know who
were these friends of sleep. Perhaps they may have been gentlemen who
did not like noise, or perhaps they were an association of tumultuous
fellows who thus disguised themselves under an ironical title. They
may have been a type of the class who are described in the present
slang of New York as _roosters_.
There were advertisements of lost property, hotels announcing rooms to
let, stolen horses, performances at the theatres, and various other
things, such as we see in the advertising papers, and in posters on
the walls at the present day.
There were some of these posters devoted to what we call _personals_.
Of course they were obscurely worded, so as to be understood only by
those for whom they were intended. One of my companions asserted that
one advertisement read, “Julia, same place, six P. M., Tuesday;” and
another said, “Scipio, come back; all will be forgiven;” and another
was, “Marcus has gone west, will return next week.”
I did not see these advertisements, and make the statement only on
his authority. I might have been inclined to believe it had he not
declared, with the most solemn visage, that he read an advertisement
thus: “Secure me a suit of rooms on the Boston steamer to-morrow.”
This was too much; and I told him that business was played out.
There were inscriptions in reference to the cleanliness of the
city; and some of them recalled, in terms too precise and definite
for modern times, the announcement of the present day, “Commit no
Nuisance.”
Pompeii was not a large city; it contained only about thirty
thousand inhabitants, and was rather a suburb than a great national
dwelling-place. The Rome of that day was many times larger; and when
we are considering the buried city, we must remember that we are
considering a small hamlet rather than a large capital.
[Sidenote: PICTURE OF THE DESTRUCTION.]
A volume might be filled with descriptions of Pompeii and its
contents; the forum, the theatres, the dwellings, the tombs, the
baths, the shops, the stables, the gardens, are all interesting.
According to the histories, it was during a festival that the eruption
took place. We may imagine the picture, that while the amphitheatre
was crowded and gladiatorial combats were in progress, the earth
shook, and the sky was dark with the clouds of smoke and ashes rising
from the great volcano. The Pompeians rushed from the amphitheatre,
and were overtaken by the shower of stones, and the deluge of ashes
falling like a burning snow upon the streets; the dust fills the
streets. Heaps of the burning ashes break through the houses, crushing
the tiles and burning the rafters; the fire falls from story to
story, and accumulates like earth thrown in to fill a trench. The
amphitheatre is speedily ingulfed, and no one remains in it but the
dead gladiators, and the prisoners enclosed in their cages, from which
there is no escape. Those who have sheltered themselves under the
shops, and in the arcade, were buried beneath the ashes and stones.
Skeletons are found everywhere, indicating how people were overtaken
in their flight. Here is a fallen woman grasping a bag of jewels; near
by is the skeleton of a man with a bunch of keys in one hand, and the
remains of a bag of coins in the other. A woman holding a child in
her arms took shelter in an oven, and was enclosed there. A soldier,
faithful to his duty, remains at his post before the gate of the city,
one hand upon his mouth, and the other on his spear, and in this
brave attitude he died. The family of Diomed assembled in his cellar,
where seventeen victims, women and children, were buried alive,
clinging closely to each other. The last agony of these poor wretches
is terrible to imagine.
[Illustration: BODIES OF POMPEIANS CAST IN THE ASHES.]
A priest of Isis, enveloped in flames, and unable to escape into the
street, cut through two walls with an axe, and fell at the foot of the
third, still clutching his weapon. A goat was found crouched in an
oven with its bell still attached to its neck. Prisoners were found
with their ankles riveted to iron bars. Everywhere skeletons have been
discovered, and they all picture the anguish and terror the sufferers
endured on the day of the eruption.
[Sidenote: OBSCENITY OF THE POMPEIANS.]
Many moralists, those who consider that Sodom and Gomorrah were
destroyed as a punishment for their crimes, are of opinion that
Pompeii was also destroyed because of its wickedness. The discoveries
in that city are, many of them, of a character not to be described in
public prints, especially by the aid of the engraver’s art, at the
present day. Some of the eardrops worn by the women were curious to
behold. Lamps were fashioned in forms quite as obscene as they are
fantastic; and the same may be said of the chandeliers, and of many
of the utensils used in ordinary life. Curiously engraved seals are
found that would hardly be suitable to impress to-day on the back of a
letter, and there were paintings on many of the walls that should be
covered from fastidious eyes.