into the house where they
lie, and a dreadful shadow drops upon your heart as you enter their
presence. Without, the hell-storm seems to fall again, and the whole
sunny plain to be darkened with its ruin, and the city to send up the
tumult of her despair.

What is there left in Pompeii to speak of after this? The long street
of tombs outside the walls? Those that died before the city's burial
seem to have scarcely a claim to the solemnity of death.

Shall we go see Diomed's Villa, and walk through the freedman's long
underground vaults, where his friends thought to be safe, and were
smothered in heaps? The garden-ground grows wild among its broken
columns with weeds and poplar saplings; in one of the corridors they
sell photographs, on which, if you please, Ventisei has his bottle,
or drink-money. So we escape from the doom of the calamity, and so, at
last, the severely forbidden _buonamano_ is paid. A dog may die many
deaths besides choking with butter.

We return slowly through the city, where we have spent the whole day,
from nine till four o'clock. We linger on the way, imploring Ventisei
if there is not something to be seen in this or that house; we make
our weariness an excuse for sitting down, and cannot rend ourselves
from the bliss of being in Pompeii.

At last we leave its gates, and swear each other to come again many
times while in Naples, and never go again.

Perhaps it was as well. You cannot repeat great happiness.

IX.

A HALF-HOUR AT HERCULANEUM.

I.

The road from Naples to Herculaneum is, in fact, one long street; it
hardly ceases to be city in Naples till it is town at Portici, and in
the interval it is suburb, running between palatial lines of villas,
which all have their names ambitiously painted over their doors. Great
part of the distance this street is bordered by the bay, and, as far
as this is the case, it is picturesque, as every thing is belonging to
marine life in Italy. Sea-faring people go lounging up and down among
the fishermen's boats drawn up on the shore, and among the fishermen's
wives making nets, while the fishermen's children play and clamber
everywhere, and over all flap and flutter the clothes hung on poles
to dry. In this part of the street there are, of course, oysters, and
grapes, and oranges, and cactus-pulps, and cutlery, and iced drinks
to sell at various booths; and Commerce is exceedingly dramatic and
boisterous over the bargains she offers; and equall