They began to excavate. That was about two hundred years ago. Ever since
that time the work has gone on. Sometimes people have been discouraged
and have given up. At other times six hundred men have been working
busily. Kings have given money. Emperors and princes and queens have
visited the excavations. Artists have made pictures of the ruins, and
scholars have written books about them. But it is a great task to
uncover a whole city that is buried ten or twelve feet deep. The
excavation is not yet finished. Perhaps when you are old men and women
the work will be completed, and a whole Roman city will be open to your
eyes.

But even as it is to-day, that ghost of a city is among the world's
wonders. There is the thick stone wall that goes all about the town. On
its wide top the soldiers used to stand to fight in ancient days. Now
the stones are fallen; its towers are broken; its gates are open. Yet
there the battered little giant stands at its task of protecting the
town. Out of its eight gates stretch the paved streets.

Perhaps some day you will cross the ocean to visit this "dead city."
It lies on a slope at the foot of Vesuvius. Behind stands the tall,
graceful volcano with its floating feather of steam and smoke. In front
lies a little plain, and beyond it a long ridge of steep mountains. Off
at the side shines the dark blue sea with island peaks rising out of it.
On hillsides and plain are green vineyards and dark forests dotted with
white farmhouses.

In some places there are high mounds of dirt outside the city wall. They
are made by the ashes that have been dug out by the excavators and piled
here. If you climb one of them you will be able to look over the city.
You will find it a little place--less than a mile long and half a mile
wide inside its ragged wall. And yet many thousand people used to live
here. So the houses had to be crowded together. You will see no grassy
lawns nor vacant lots nor playgrounds nor parks with pleasant trees.
Many narrow streets cross one another and cut the city into solid blocks
of buildings. You will be confused because you will see thousands of
broken walls standing up, but no roofs. They are gone--crushed by the
piling ashes long ago.

At last you will come down and go in at one of the gates through the
rough, thick wall, past the empty watch towers. You will tread the very
paving stones that men's feet trampled nineteen hundred years ago as
they fled from the volcano.