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POMPEII.

[Illustration: DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII.]

Pompeii was in its full glory at the commencement of the Christian
era. It was a city of wealth and refinement, with about 35,000
inhabitants, and beautifully located at the foot of Mount Vesuvius; it
possessed all local advantages that the most refined taste could
desire. Upon the verge of the sea, at the entrance of a fertile plain,
on the bank of a navigable river, it united the conveniences of a
commercial town with the security of a military station, and the
romantic beauty of a spot celebrated in all ages for its pre-eminent
loveliness. Its environs, even to the heights of Vesuvius, were
covered with villas, and the coast, all the way to Naples, was so
ornamented with gardens and villages, that the shores of the whole
gulf appeared as one city.

What an enchanting picture must have presented itself to one
approaching Pompeii by sea! He beheld the bright, cheerful Grecian
temples spreading out on the slopes before him; the pillared Forum;
the rounded marble Theatres. He saw the grand Palaces descending to
the very edge of the blue waves by noble flights of steps, surrounded
with green pines, laurels and cypresses, from amidst whose dark
foliage marble statues of gods gleamed whitely.

The skillful architect, the sculptors, the painters, and the casters
of bronze were all employed to make Pompeii an asylum of arts; all
trades and callings endeavored to grace and beautify the city. The
prodigious concourse of strangers who came here in search of health
and recreation added new charms and life to the scene.

But behind all this, and encased as it were in a frame, the landscape
rose in a gentle slope to the summit of the thundering mountain. But
indications were not wanting of the peril with which the city was
threatened. The whole district is volcanic; and a few years before the
final catastrophe, an earthquake had shaken Pompeii to its
foundations; some of the buildings were much injured. On August 24,
A.D. 79, the inhabitants were busily engaged in repairing the damage
thus wrought, when suddenly and without any previous warning a vast
column of black smoke burst from the overhanging mountain. Rising to a
prodigious height in the cloudless summer sky, it then gradually
spread out like the head of some mighty Italian pine, hiding the sun,
and overshadowing the earth for miles in distance.

The darkness grew into profound night, only broken by