triking than the spectacle. They are not statues, but corpses, moulded
by Vesuvius; the skeletons are still there, in those casings of plaster
which reproduce what time would have destroyed, and what the damp ashes
have preserved,--the clothing and the flesh, I might almost say the
life. The bones peep through here and there, in certain places which
the plaster did not reach. Nowhere else is there anything like this to
be seen. The Egyptian mummies are naked, blackened, hideous; they no
longer have anything in common with us; they are laid out for their
eternal sleep in the consecrated attitude. But the exhumed Pompeians are
human beings whom one sees in the agonies of death.

One of these bodies is that of a woman near whom were picked up
ninety-one pieces of coin, two silver urns, and some keys and jewels.
She was endeavoring to escape, taking with her these precious articles,
when she fell down in the narrow street. You still see her lying on her
left side; her head-dress can very readily be made out, as also can the
texture of her clothing and two silver rings which she still has on her
finger; one of her hands is broken, and you see the cellular structure
of the bone; her left arm is lifted and distorted; her delicate hand is
so tightly clenched that you would say the nails penetrate the flesh;
her whole body appears swollen and contracted; the legs only, which are
very slender, remain extended. One feels that she struggled a long time
in horrible agony; her whole attitude is that of anguish, not of death.

Behind her had fallen a woman and a young girl; the elder of the two,
the mother, perhaps, was of humble birth, to judge by the size of her
ears; on her finger she had only an iron ring; her left leg lifted and
contorted, shows that she, too, suffered; not so much, however, as the
noble lady: the poor have less to lose in dying. Near her, as though
upon the same bed, lies the young girl; one at the head, and the other
at the foot, and their legs are crossed. This young girl, almost a
child, produces a strange impression; one sees exactly the tissue, the
stitches of her clothing, the sleeves that covered her arms almost to
the wrists, some rents here and there that show the naked flesh, and the
embroidery of the little shoes in which she walked; but above all, you
witness her last hour, as though you had been there, beneath the wrath
of Vesuvius; she had thrown her dress over her head, like the daughter
of Diomed