nd heard
The Mountain's slumberous voice at intervals
Thrill through those roofless walls."

The roofless state of the houses seems to have been caused, partly by
the weight of matter which collected on them, and also from the fact of
their being principally composed of wood, which was burnt by the red-hot
stones that fell in showers from the burning mountain. There was,
however, always sufficient of the building remaining to tell whether it
had been a shop or a private residence, and, if the former, to
distinguish what particular business had been carried on there: for
instance, we found the bakers' ovens nearly perfect; while the
wine-shops had great stone pitchers of the "Ali Baba" kind sunk into the
counter, for cooling purposes, with the necks just showing above. The
money-changers' shops were all marked by some such inscription as "Money
is the thing worshipped here" (nothing new under the sun, thought I).
Then there were the baths, arranged on the Roman principle (that which
is erroneously known in the present day as the Turkish system), with
rooms for graduated temperature, and all the conveniences for
heating-places and niches for ointments and unguents, etc., to be used
after the luxury of the bath. The private dwellings were most
attractive, with their frescoed chambers, fountains, and open courts.
Few of the houses had any windows; the light probably being admitted
from the roof above, and reflected from the marble tanks of water in the
centre of the court. But even under this hypothesis, I cannot help
thinking the ancients had some other means of catching the light and
diffusing it in their apartments, in some such manner as the Chappuis'
reflectors we now use, though no certain evidence is yet forthcoming
that they did so. There were places of amusement, and even places of
vice, all distinctly noted: the Chalcidicum or Hall of Justice, the
Street of the Tombs, Senate-houses, schools, Forums, and Temples,
amphitheatres and coliseums--principally, of course, mere ruins, but
still showing great beauty of design and finish. Most of the walls had
evidently been veneered with marble about an inch or two thick; and
there was, in some of the rooms, space left between the walls for
heating purposes. It is said that at the time of the eruption Pompeii
was still unfinished, indeed, that the preceding earthquake had
interrupted the Romans in beautifying the city: there were pointed out
to us several col