A PAGAN PLEASURE HAUNT.

Otago Witness, Issue 2504, 19 March 1902, Page 72

A PAGAN PLEASURE HAUNT.

By a Banker. A s-hort distance fic;n the beautiiui wholes of tbo Mcditeiranean lies that city of the dead, that voluptuous plcasu'.o haunt of paganism, Pompeii. In its purac it was a busy, thriving city, the popular c ea coast resort and residence of Idigc numbers of the wealthy upper classes of Rome, who passed their leisure tune In the amphitheatie, the forum, and the crowded streets, the stone pavements of which are worn down into deep ruts by their chariot wheels. The numoious whig shops, too, in which -the large amphorre or wine vessels are still standing were also doubtless favourite resorts of those dissolute patricians. But they were literally sleeping on a volcano ; they had built their city upon a site of beauty, upon the slopes of the smoking, burning mountain, which formed a weud, fire-illumined background ; regardless of the fact that probably those blood-red flames, which by night lit up the pall of cloud and steam as if the universe itself were on fire, would one day be the cause of their destruction. And they met their fate. For in the midst of their revelries the pent-up fires burst forth fiom the teinble furnace ever burning beneath the brittle solid cru«t of the. earth, &nd eject from that seething cauldron a veritable deluge of molten rock, and ashes, and dust, and unctMous mud. The belching flumes roar wiih appalling fury; great tongues of fhe dart hither and thither, fragments of rock and massive stones are shot high in air, as from a, titanc piece of ordnance, pl streaming down upon the doomed city in on? c7e=tioiing deluge. The earth herself tiemblcs with awn, and the lica^ns imp shrouded in a pall of darkness- a d?iki'c i-'5i -'5 which rnaj be feit, iliend and afiiilj'itlrg.

And now they fee some, not taiiyn.c, to collect their treasure, o<;cnne with then life, come, unwilling to part v.ith their gold, rushdown into their cellars to secure their lio?ul But too late. Their ret 1 cat .s cut off, and then treasmc chdinbei is their sepulchre, wliero their whitened Lone have lested these mnctcin hundid years, the portals of their tufa-covered tomb sealed up by the devastating ashflood, until now at length opened by the spade of the cxploier. And eoiuc?, puffocatcci and choked, fall prone to thf giound, angoied Nature herself I'crfr.rmniE the funeral rites for the struggl'iig \Ktim -a-'ies to a u hes, dust to dust, cnwirippu g and «-iiiothiriiiff tlie wictched miserrfb'e 111 t l ie ashy inud-iain, which in piocps3 ci ti.ue harclcn<= lmiiid him, leaving ». jjcifcct mould ef hi« v.riUnng, contorted figure. A.'d. iji..\ P'-t (1 ,nl, lh»re stand's that noble Koina'i ■-oldiri. oidrird to stand bc-iitiy until irlievcd, still, win 1 dis< overed, standing erect at hi 1 - po=t, having rc^n 1 - cl to quit it although .■ r'nkniK .Ifpt'i =Uiit(i lupi full ii the face.

U'lt pn'i.ij) tin- In. '»c man, ul)o frdic'l not death, wa-. oi" 1 of th iihjimui-, cwi\cit' to Chr>«-!iuiiilv ivliich r\pn thoii v.iii gaining ••uch a hold upon t!m woild, hundiecH and thi.'itaiulc being wiilirg ti> bt tom to pirces l.y hons or woli ]iou,>ds in thp aicua lather Jhiin den\ then hc.ly faith. For ho knew that, having accepted ihc S.u.our as Ins ilediator, all his m t-d"eda wtic blotted cut of the lecord on hi'Ji, ;>ncl that Ki~ bclc.-sd Lord w.is waiting to lecivc his spiiit ir.'.o joy the i 'o unit it w?s Ico'cd from the tianimel^ o.' its 1 :oi;al coils.