of their banks they flowed slowly on, as toward the
devoted city. Over the broadest there seemed to spring a cragged and
stupendous arch, from which, as from the jaws of hell, gushed the
sources of the sudden Phlegethon. And through the still air was heard
the rattling of the fragments of rock, hurtling one upon another as they
were borne down the fiery cataracts--darkening, for one instant, the
spot where they fell, and suffused the next, in the burnished hues of
the flood in which they floated!

* * * * *

Nearly seventeen centuries had rolled away when the city of Pompeii was
disinterred from its silent tomb,[45] all vivid with undimmed hues; its
walls fresh as if painted yesterday--not a hue faded on the rich mosaic
of its floors--in its forum the half-finished columns as left by the
workman's hand--in its gardens the sacrificial tripod--in its halls the
chest of treasure--in its baths the _strigil_--in its theatres the
counter of admission--in its saloons the furniture and the lamp--in its
_triclinia_ the fragments of the last feast--in its _cubicula_ the
perfumes and the rouge of faded beauty--and everywhere the bones and
skeletons of those who once moved the springs of that minute yet
gorgeous machine of luxury and of life!

In the house of Diomed, in the subterranean vaults, twenty skeletons
(one of a babe) were discovered in one spot by the door, covered by a
fine ashen dust, that had evidently been wafted slowly through the
apertures, until it had filled the whole space. There were jewels and
coins, candelabra for unavailing light, and wine hardened in the
_amphorae_ for the prolongation of agonized life. The sand, consolidated
by damps, had taken the forms of the skeletons as in a cast; and the
traveller may yet see the impression of a female neck and bosom of young
and round proportions. It seems to the inquirer as if the air had been
gradually changed into a sulphurous vapor; the inmates of the vaults had
rushed to the door, to find it closed and blocked up by the scoria
without, and, in their attempts to force it, had been suffocated with
the atmosphere.

In the garden was found a skeleton with a key by its bony hand, and near
it a bag of coins. This is believed to have been the master of the
house, who had probably sought to escape by the garden, and been
destroyed either by the vapors or some fragment of stone. Beside some
silver vases lay another skeleton, probably tha