the
classical past. Nature has long clothed the ruined area of the ancient
city with her kindly drapery of foliage and flowers, so that the crumbling
masses of tawny brick that we come across in our rambles are all swathed
in garlands of clematis, myrtle, honey-suckle and coronella. It is a
delight to speculate upon the original use and appearance of these
shapeless blocks of creeper-clad masonry, which attract the eye on all
sides amidst the vineyards and orange groves, where the peasants delving
in the rich soil frequently alight upon treasures of the antique world.
What a delight it is to wander through the Street of Tombs--alas, long
rifled of their contents!--where the gay valerian and the pink silene
sprout from every fissure of the soft tufa rock, and lizards of unusual
size and brilliancy play games of hide-and-seek in the warm sunshine. We
moderns are afraid of graveyards and the paraphernalia of the dead: many a
stout-hearted Englishman objects to passing through a church-yard at
night; not so the pagan Romans, who placed their cemeteries in public
places and were wont to proceed through lines of tombs as they entered the
city of the living: a very salutary and practical reminder of the
transitory nature of life itself. The whole neighbourhood in short is
sprinkled with these memorials of Imperial Rome; there is not an orange or
lemon orchard but stands above some forgotten villa, not an acre of tilth
but must conceal some hidden mine of classical associations. Charming too
are the walks by the sea-shore--now sadly disfigured by the _Cantiere
Armstrong_, with its smoke and ugliness looking like a dirty smudge upon
the delicate landscape of the Bay--for here again we find endless traces of
the Imperial age. There can be no more fascinating employment than to
wander along the beach after one of the heavy winter storms that so often
vex the quiet of the Bay of Naples, and to search for fragments of
precious marbles that have been spied by the waves amidst the sunken
foundations of Roman villas, and thence idly flung upon the shore. Pieces
of the choicest white Parian, squares of speckled Egyptian porphyry, of
_verde_, _rosso_ and _giallo antico_, of the coal-black _Africano_, all
wet and glistening from the waves, can be picked up by the quick-sighted,
and the gathering of these beautiful trifles, cut and polished by skilled
hands nearly two thousand years ago, makes an interesting occupation. Nor
is its classical