y beautiful houses and well preserved apartments
should be untenanted. The deserted aspect of this town had a very
melancholy effect in my eyes.

Though a great portion of the town has already been dug out, only
three hundred skeletons have been found,--a proof that the greater
portion of the inhabitants effected their escape.

In many houses I found splendid tesselated pavements, representing
flowers, wreaths, animals, and arabesques; even the halls and
courtyards were decorated with a larger kind of mosaic work. The
walls of the rooms are plastered over with a description of firm
polished enamel, frequently looking like marble, and covered with
beautiful frescoes. In Sallust's house a whole row of wine jugs
still stands in the cellar. In the houses the division of the
rooms, and the purposes to which the different apartments were
devoted, can still be distinctly traced. In general they are very
small, and the windows seldom look out upon the street. Deep ruts
of carriages can be seen in the streets. All the treasures of art
which could be removed, such as statues, pictures, etc., were
carried off to Naples, and placed in the museum there.

VESUVIUS.

In the agreeable society of Herr M. and Madame Brettschneider, I
rode away from Resina at eleven in the forenoon. A pleasant road,
winding among vineyards, brought us in an hour's time to the
neighbourhood of the great lava-field, Torre del Greco. It is a
fearful sight to behold these grand mounds of lava towering in the
most various forms around us. All traces of vegetation have
vanished; far and wide we can descry nothing but hardened masses,
which once rushed in molten streams down the mountain. A capitally-
constructed road leads us, without the slightest fatigue, through
the midst of this scene of devastation to the usual resting-place of
travellers, the "Hermitage."

At this dwelling we made halt, ascended to the upper story, and
called for a bottle of Lacrimae Christi. The view here, and at
several other points of our ascent, is most charming.

The hermit seems, however, to lead any thing but a solitary life,
for a day seldom passes on which strangers do not call in to claim
his attention in proportion as they run up a score. The clerical
gentleman is, in fact, no more and no less than a very common
innkeeper, and partakes of the goodly obesity frequently noticed
among persons of his class. We stayed three quarters of an hour in
the domicile