ildings were used as shops, and in one or
two are large marble basins hollowed out where the wine which was sold
was kept cool. Along the side of one house is a gaudily painted serpent,
signifying that an apothecary, or, as we should say, a chemist, lived
here.

We can go into one of the better-class dwelling-houses and we find that
it was built around a courtyard or central hall, and we can peep into
the sleeping-rooms, which, in spite of all the luxury of the
inhabitants, were mere little dark cupboards with no light or air. Well,
so they were in our castles until quite recently! There was a garden
behind the hall in all the better-class houses, and this had almost
always a tank for gold-fish; we can see it still; but all the little
personal things that have been unearthed--the jewellery and household
utensils and even the statues--have been taken to the museum at Naples
for safe keeping, which is a pity, as the streets and living-rooms seem
bare and cold and we need a good deal of imagination to picture them as
they must have been.

Here at last is something that makes us start and brings back the awful
scene of death and dismay. In a deep recess by a doorway are six
skeletons, lying in various attitudes, left exactly as they were found.
These people had been caught; they were hurrying, evidently to get out
of the outer door, and finding it had been silted up by dust and that
they could not open it, had turned back, too late, and been smothered!
There they lie now, nearly two thousand years after, just as then.

There were about two thousand skeletons thus found and taken away--only
these few were left to give visitors some idea of the tragedy that
happened. The sticky dust and ashes which poured down upon the doomed
city reached a depth of twenty-six feet, and they encased everything in
a kind of crust. Dogs and cats were caught in this way, and even little
lizards, such as those that live in the cracks of the walls in Italy to
this day; and though their bodies had decayed away long before they
could be dug out, yet the exact impression remained, and in many cases,
by pouring soft plaster into the holes, men have reproduced to the life
the poor little wriggling body that was caught in such a terrible
prison! You can imagine what great value it has been to historians to
find the things used by people so long ago. In most cases customs change
gradually; the implements and utensils which one generation use are
broke