boots. On rainy days
this street must have been the bed of a torrent, as the alleys and
by-ways of Naples are still; hence, one, sometimes three, thicker blocks
were placed so as to enable foot passengers to cross with dry feet.
These small fording blocks must have made it difficult for vehicles to
get by; hence, the ruts that are still found traceable on the pavement
are the marks of wagons drawn slowly by oxen, and not of those light
chariots which romance-writers launch forth so briskly in the ancient
city. Moreover, it has been ascertained that the Pompeians went afoot;
only the quality had themselves drawn about in chariots in the country.
Where could room have been found for stables and carriage-houses in
those dwellings scarcely larger than your hat? It was in the suburbs
only, in the outskirts of the city, that the dimensions of the
residences rendered anything of the kind possible. Let us, then,
obliterate these chariots from our imagination, if we wish to see the
streets of Pompeii as they really were.

After a shower, the rain water descended, little by little, into the
gutters, and from the latter, by holes still visible, into a
subterranean conduit that carried it outside of the city. One of these
conduits is still open in the Street of Stabiae, not far from the temple
of Isis.

As to the general aspect of these ancient thoroughfares, it would seem
dull enough, were we to represent the scene to our fancy with the houses
closed, the windows gone, the dwellings with merely a naked wall for a
front, and receiving air and light only from the two courts. But it was
not so, as everything goes to prove. In the first place, the shops
looked out on the street and were, indeed almost entirely open, like our
own, offering to the gaze of the passers-by a broad counter, leaving
only a small space free to the left or the right to let the vendors pass
in and out. In these counters, which were usually covered with a marble
slab, were hollowed the cavities wherein the grocers and liquor-dealers
kept their eatables and drinkables. Behind the counters and along the
walls were stone shelves, upon which the stock was put away. Festoons
of edibles hung displayed from pillar to pillar; stuffs, probably,
adorned the fronts, and the customers, who made their purchases from the
sidewalk, must have everywhere formed noisy and very animated groups.
The native of the south gesticulates a great deal, likes to chaffer,
discusses with v