The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1870-06-16
Pompeii and -esuvius.
A Visit to the Old POmpeiian H0usehGld-The
Continued Excavations.

thousand years, reader, and stand witt
me on the vast remains ofan ancient city
whose streets, theatras and temples beg I
TO revive in graceful ruins. From the
tangled mass, beneath the lava, voluptu
Gus art, streWn amid the courts and Their
mae of that once proud city, breathing
existence in the haughtiest age OF the
r man Empire-rises terminated. Ex-
quisite mural paintings, in the roofiess
chambers, as fresh and plain as if they
had been executed yesterday, disenterred
from their long burial, mirror the luxu-
robustness and debasement of Pompiian
life. A perfect fascination creeps over
the wondering visitor, when, standing at
the bottom OF the market place, he looks
up at the silent streets, through the ruin
ed temp es Of Jupiter and Isis, over bro
ken palaces with exposed sancturies, to
Mt. Yesuvius, in the PEACEFUL distance.
1t is like dream. You have but little
need of time, and no understanding of
its flight The strange scene grows mel
ancholy III its sensation, when we ramble
on, passing relics of human habltatation
and daily life--the stone rim Of the eX
hausted we'll, worn by the bucket rope !;
the marks of the carriage whoels in the
narrow streets; the places for drinking
" ssels on the marble counter of the wine
shop; the Amph3re, In private cellars,
hundreds of years ago put away the mil
ler's wheel and his oven, where tor 1000
years lay his last baking the house of
Diomedes, where skeletons were found,
huddled together near the door, as if at
tempting to escape, shruLkcn inside to
scanty bones, and hardened with ashes
are scenes of Shis ghostly city, awfully
impressive andj solemn. Moving on,
baths, amphitheaters, and temples, where
the gods were W mt to be worshipped by
the priests, drmly show the revelry Of
pleasure, the pursuit of games, and the
superstitious alteration of that elysian
age. Peahaps the vista of imagination
becomes paramount to the reality, when,
looking upon the neighboring grounds,
exhuberant with the prodigal vine and
orange groves, we reflect that house upon
house, palace upon palace, temple upon
temple, monoment upon monument are
still. lying underneath the quiet growth !;
and that their untold wealth of art clas-
sic stories, neurological fables, conceits
of cupids, theatrical rehearseis, poetic
recitations, arts icallytOld in colors and
the mysteries of antiquity, are waiting to
be turned up to the light of day. Sitting
upon fragment of stone, covered with
ancient MOSES, where the sleepy lizard
crept, and the nimble grasshopper skip
ped, watched the slow excavation of a
room, and saw burst into light, for the
first time since the fearful eruption, the
aerial grace of the Pompeiian dancing
girls with dazzling brilliancy of color,
as beautiful as though the artist had that
moment put his finishing touch upon them.
Imperial Rome proudly points to the Dig
nifty IF her Forum the colossal grandeur
OF her coliseum the magnificence of the
remains of "minence and power of her
Christian civilization; to the wide Cam.
pania with miles of aqueducts stretching
to Tiyoli, and Tiyoli itself, with Ha-
drains massive villa, where he Empe-
ror gathered his spoils of travel and
Toasted poets, philosophers, and states.
men. But this vast sea, linked by mem.
cries of study, and sacred in its recollect-
ions of scholastic pedantries, is not more
impressive than the awful sublimity of
!" this city Of the dead" Had Vesuvius,
in its fury, burst the earth, and bur ed
the city in its bowels, and left not sin
gle trace, the solitude would not have
been less solemn. 1t is a curiosity here
the melted lava, penetrated into every
nook and corner, entered tombs and for
ced the ashes of the dead from their fu-
neral urns; crawled into the eyes ears
and mouths of the living, like hot lead
poured into mold. Layer upon layer,
as though the hand OF genius had system
aticaily placed them there, mark the diff
ferent deposits of ernptlons-in some
places solid as marble. The work of ex-
cavation goes ON daily, the girls, boys,
men and women carry away the debris
and hunting for precious articles often
find rings, jewelry and coins, or delicate
mosaic works. Every erect or fallen col
unn, every mark of that awful cstastro-
phe, suggest to our mind the horror of
that hour, when day turned into night
and light into darkness" the delicious
breeze of the South, passing over the
gulf of centuries lifts the cloud of smoke,
hanging over the fatal Destroyer, still
heaving, ready at any time to send forth
her charge.
THE CONsTANTINoPLE HoRRoR-It APP
pears, according tothe latest intelligence,
that by the recent confagration at Con.
stantinople, more than seven thousand
buildings were consumed. The loss of
property is computed at twenty five mil
lion pounds sterling, or more than hun
bred million dollars. This, OF itself
would make of the event most deplor-
able catrastrophy.
But it seems tina this is only small
part of the calamity. A Constantinope
dispatch of the 9th inst states that more
than twenty-five hundred persons were
burned to death or killed by falling walls,
At some points whole families were
hemmed in, being, as it were, on islands