RECOLLECTIONS OF POMPEII.

Otago Witness, Issue 2055, 13 July 1893, Page 49

RECOLLECTIONS OF POMPEII.

By O. N.

Oufc o£ all the thousands of people who annually visit Pompeii, there can be but few on whom the place does not leave a deep and lastiDg impression;, indeed, a person mu3t needß be thoroughly matter of fact and unimaginative who, having once eecn the stupendous spectacle of the dead oity, fails to be impiesEed by what might be termed the eeriness of the place.- Although it is oow.some e'ght years sinoe 1 1 visited Naplo9 and its interesting environs, yet I can recall, without much effort, most if not all the impressions left upon my memory at that time. Well do I remember the day when I firat beheld Pompeii. It was a glorious morning in November, the sun shining brightly as I stepped from the carriage on to the platform of the little railway station at Pompeii. To the left rose Mount Vesuvius, clad in its sombre mantle or brown asbe*, a silvery fume of smoke issuing from the summit into the dear morning air ; while to the right sparkled the broad expanse of blue water, dotted here and tbeie with the, brown sails of fißhing boats drifting lazily sea ward, everything possessing that peculiar brightness so characteristic of Italian aoenery. Escaping from the pestering throng of beggars who await the arrival of the. train, I strolled up the winding slope leading to tha sea gate of Pompeii, and on my way Bscured the services of agHide— a bright, intelligent Italian and an ex-soldier, as most of the Pompeian guides are. The Government have adopted a very strict and sensible code of rules regarding fees in Pompeii. Bach visitor has, or bad, to pay 2tr admisBion (I think this oharge is now iqwered to lfc). This inoludeß the services of a guide, and notices are posted in prominent places forbidding gratuities to guides. - Thus tourists escape being pillaged by a Bwarm of useless attendant vagabond*— a praotice very common in' all part 3of Italy and the Continent generally. Leaving the sea gate, my guide led the way to the Forum, passing on oar road the Pompeian Court of Common Pleas. Its9ems almost impossible to attempt, to give anything like a clear and connected account of the various objects of interest which meet the eye of a stranger in Pompeii. Just at first the peculiarity .of the, scene, viewed as it-generally is by the bright light of day, does not particularly strike the visitor, but let him proceed further with his investigations let him once grasp the stupendous fact that be standß in a oity of the dead, and yet, so to speak,' not of the dead, for the signs of life are visible in every direction, and then Pompeii will be for him what it is to thousands of thinking men and women who have'once visited' it— £n endleß3 source of interest and instruction. , .AloUg the narrow silent streets one seems to, hear the noisy rattle of chariot wheels, and the sudden apparition of" a -toga -clad Roman would appear to-be the natural consequence of entering .one of the small shops that line the roads. The Forum is a large area surrounded by broken columns, temples, triumphal arches, and public buildiDgs of every" description. The walla of these, formed of red brick, and formerly In many cases covered with white marble, and the rows of pedestals which once supported statues, are all that now remain to tell of the Forum's erstwhile grandeur, The Forum in ancient days was the centre of business, a pleasure resort, and the soene of political and legal contentions. I could, if space permitted, indulge in a long and what might be to some a tedious account of the P6mpeian Forum and its adjacent pu&b 1 buildings, but I will spare my readers the recital and proceed to topics of more general interest. Leaving the Forum, we started off through the city en route for the amphitheatre and theatres. The streets of ■ Pompeii are in themselves well worth study. Ihe footpaths and roadway b are composed of' large slabs or lava, neatly joined and pieced together, bits of iron being inserted to fill up some of the more awkward cravices. Stepping fctonea— blocks of lava about a foot high— connect the footpaths, one tuch block' being fixed in the middle of the road, where, on account of the breadth of the chariotP, it does not appear to have interfered with vehicle traffic. It is very carious to observe that portions of the roads are in better repair than, others. Visions of long-depatted , Pompeian vestry meetings rise before one's gaze as one sees these recent (I) signs 'of repair,' and we can well imagine the indignant letters which would have appeared in. the daily press had such an institution been, in existence complaining of the disgraceful odnditjion'of the road opposite the residence of' M. Sallust, 31 — * — street. Here ia a wine shop 1 Look at the Immense earthenware jars , (amphoral) holding wine. What a hard-drinking lowthese dead and gone Pompeians must have been to be sure! But the cool depths of these great wino vessels contain nothing • now more hurtful than graceful sprays 'of maideryhair fern. ' ■ ' ■ I think the thing that impressed me most in Pompeii was the sfght of a Bhort cut. I forget its exact situation, but it-was some-, where near the. Forum, and* in rr v the busiest part of the city. Two streets meet, or rather are divided by a triangular 'corner buildinp, at the back of which riwdariarrow^lane! connecting the. two thoroughfares. -The whole length of this right-of-way is absolutely worn into, grooves scad holes by the continual foot traffic of generations, 'One can pioture the, scene so V«d! — burtying business men, toiling slaves/eerions senators, all sorts and conditions, high and low,- not one of the motley crowd but elbows > and pusheß his or her way down the busy alley instead of going 100 yds .or so out of their way. How like all centuries are after" all! The same bustle and basto went onJLBOO years ago even>aß it <Joee to-day, it, was long beforel could tear myself away from that deserted " short cut," and •'as I turned away I could not help thinking what a grand meeting place it would be for gljpsts, if such things be. What a merry carjnival those multitudes" of departed spirits would have to be sure 1 What greetings and hfcarty shakes of phantom bands'! " '• ' On reaching the amphitheatre I found it to be much the same as many others j that I have seen in Italy — the nsual oval-ahaped

building, lined with tiers on tiers of stone Beats stretching down to the areoa ; cells and dens were there all oomplete, and I think I even discovered the original booking^ office, at the entrance, or something "very similar; We next examined the theatres close by, and then retraced our steps towards the Forum once mire. If I remember rightly the houses of Pausa, Sallust, and Diomede were the next items on our visiting list. Most of the private houses in Pompeii, except those belonging to the very wealthy class, have a portion of the building set apart for commercial purposes— a email shop, where the master's wine, grain, oil, &o , were sold. The entrance of a typical Pompeian house is generally roughly frescoed, and in many caseß one sees on the wall a rude representation of a chalnsd dog, with the warning legend " Cave oanem 1 " inscribed beneath. The entrance hall leada into a covered court, which in houses of more pretension is called the "Atrium"; then comes the "Impluvium," an unroofed space in the centre of the buildiDg, -where rain was caught and drained into a cistern, and here the household used to come and wash itself. Beyond the impluvium is a small garden, and the dining room with bedrooms on either Bide. The pavements of the houßes are all mosaic, some being of most elaborate patterns and extremely beautiful. Most of the best mosaics have, however, been removed now to the Naples museum. The chief features of beauty of the Pompeian houses, however, are the frescoes, and it is useless fpr me to try and give anything like an adequate discription of the glowing colours of these — they must be seen to be appreciated.

Pompeii of to-day boasts a small but very interesting museum of its own, in which may be seen the casts of several human figures, both male and female. These remains were found bedded in the ashes, which haviDg settled and hardened round the bodies left in coarse of time hollow?, perfect counterparts of the remains once enclosed there. By pouring liquid rjMeter of Paris into these hollows the nineteenth century is now able to gize on the forms of what were once living men and. women. Terrible indeed it is to observe the signs of agmy depicted in the postures of these writhing forms. The casts are so exact that the very rings upon the fiDgars of the female figures are discernible. Another strange sight is the cast of a dog apparently struggling in the very throes of death, and twisted out of all shape. A collar, similar to the dog collars of the present day, studded with nails, is fßund the animal's neck. The mighty leveller Daath has long held the doomed city of Pompeii in his relentless grasp, and even after the lapse of centuries seems unwilliDg to relinquish his victim.

I must now draw my brief sketch to a close. A volume might easily be filed with what I have left unmentioned — the bread, baked perhaps only a few hours previous to the destruction of the city, the very wine and apothecaries' drugs that yet remain intact in bottbs— all these thing 3 must, as I have remarked before, be seen to be realised. The mslancholiby street of tombs, just outside the walls of Pompeii, deserves a chapter to itself. In the tombs were found urns containing ashes of the dead, together "with tear bottles, the latter a touching fancy of a poetic race. I have in my possession two of these small tear bottles, glass vials, originally of simple but elegant shape, which were found at Herculaneum, and owing to the intense heat to which they were once subjected by proximity to molten lava, they are doubled up almost into knots. I cannot go more fully into these fascinating subjects, for space forbids; but to those of my readers who have not already visited Naples and its wonderful surroundings,, and who intend doirg so at some future date.'l can say but one thing— l envy them. As for Pompeii, there is nothing like it on earth, and to have seen it constitutes, in my opinion, one of the saddest pleasures (excuse the apparent contradiction) of life.