The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-03-08
A DAY IN RUINED P0MPEII.
How 1t Was Destroyed--Fiye Indianap-
OlitanS Who Have Just Been There.
What They Saw and What They Did-Ex-
Senator Hendricks Opinion of
Judge Rands Politics,

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Naples, climb Mount Vesuvius, go to st. Paurs,
Puteoli, CAESARS and Horace's, Baia and, browning
all, to wander through the city of Pompeii. 1t
would be a wonderful thing if we could roll back
the wheel of time at indianapolis for sixty years
and present to view the little one-horse log
cabin village that clustered on what was then
oftener called Main street. than Washington
street. Ineed hardly say how much more start
ling would it be if, from the old burying ground
on Kentucky avenue, the early dead of the
frontier settlement should rise and once more
go through their occupation as Of yore. But if
this could not be, if only the log cabins could be
as they were, with coon-skin outside, with mud
and-stick c~himneys, with big fire place and
plenty of iron skillets, pots and pans, and a great
big crane; if the three or four tanneries and the
one or two small brick houses, all finished, and
our first brick court house unfinished, could be
SEEM; if the stumps of trees and the rail fences
and the mud holes-all on Main shetland if
Van Blarieum's old ferry boat and the Hanna
ways fishing seins down by the river side-in
short, if all could be brought back, it would be
something akin to one walking through the
streets of Pompeii. Yes, we here have the
privilege of looking upon the remains of the
very buildings which the Apostle Paul saw from
the decks of the "Castor and Pollux" as the
goodly vessel sailed into the Bay of Naples
and steered for Puteoli. AS the Count du Bots
says, in his very interesting work on Italy,
sit required a miracle eighteen hundred years
ago to cover up a Roman city with pumlce stone
aad ashes, and preserve it for us moderns to
look into the minutest details of the private life
OF the ancient Romans.
You see Pompeii was overwhelmed by a shoWer
OF pumice stone and ashes, and finally, by a fine
mud paste, like a mud -colored liquid plaster of
paris, and all three of these materials, buried
tie city to the depth of twenty-four feet. The
pImice stone drove out most of the people, who,
afOot, horseback, or in chariots, fled into the
country outside of the line of the fearful storm,
and thus the great majority of the inhabitants
were saved. Probably, Judging from the mum
Der of skeletons found, only about l 500 persons,
out of a population of %, 900, were lost. The de-
%srruction took place A. D.. 70, nine years after
Pauls martyrdom. rs no lava rolled over
PompeI at that time Tor since, Tor that matter
we can see how easily the ancient inhabitants
came back and excavated, to some extent, the
city, carrying off much of the treasure in the
strong boxes, taking many bronze and marble
statues, and whatever other valuable that was
portable; and then the city was forgotten, In
the year 1892 the engineer FOntana, who was
famous in his day, was employed to bring an
aqueduct from the river Sarno into the town OF
Tore dellArnunciata, in order to supply the
place with drinking water, and also to give
power to the mills. Most of the mills in Tore
delpAnnunciata are to this day driven by that
nNhltls ClA lHC llllIo VI L. & 49, Z ilkO ICll
the grain dealers in indianapolis, grind up only
1O.000 tons of wheat mot bushels, but tons, mind
ye,) every month. This aqueduct was actually
run under ground right through the houses and
temples of Pompeii, and not a word was said
about the remains the workmen saw. But in
LAB a peasant at work On his farm over
Eompeii dug out a bronze statue, and this led
to the discovery of the Roman city. For a cen
fury since that time excavations went on slowly.
But after the accession of Victor Emmanuel to the
throne of all Italy, new vigor and system were
brought to work, and one-third of the city is
now eXcavated. The museum at Naples is
unique in the painting, bronze and marble statu-
airy. the furniture, glass, domestic utensils; anda
thousand and one other things which have
been taken thither from Pompefi and its sister
city of Herculaneum. By seeing that great col
lection in Naples, and by visiting the houses of
Pompeii, whose lower stories are pretty much
as they were left ], 800 years ago, We can get a
tolerable idea of how the Romans lived; what
was their domestic life; and we can follow them
through the hours of the day in their cares, their
duties and their amusements.
But aside from all these considerations of the
interesting things of the past, there were some
circumstances in a recent visit of mine there
which made Pompeii a little extra for that day.
1t is not every day in the week that five Indian
a~politanS are found walking amidst the ruins of
what Sir Walter Scott in that last sad year of
his life so appropriately called 1.-THE city of the
dead" But there we were-ex-Governor Hen
bricks, Mrs. Hendricks, Judge Rand, Young
Morgan and Cooley Fletcher. We ex-
amined the recent excavations; we stood in
the amphitheater and didn't 'see the gladi-
ator lie before us; we looked upon the
freshly uncovered ~frescoes, picked up bits of re
jected mosaic, glass, painted plastering, etc,
thrown out amidst the general debris; and we
walked over the cultivated fields and vineyards
which still cover two-thirds of Pompeii. We
went into one of the two farm-houses, which in
time, like the Chinese, must CO." and there,
over the buried city, we ate, with an appetite
worthy of Hoosiers, honest homemade bread,
freshlaid eggs, nice "salami" Ia sausage made
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red wine of Vesuvius, which has not an over
abundant quantity of alcohol. We were served
at the table by a very pretty and modest
peasant girl, whose mother had made the bread,
and whose father had raised on the unexcavated
part of Pompeii the wheat out of which the
bread was made. The peasant girls unaffected
bearing and her sparkling black eyes won the
heart and admiration of Mrs. Hendricks, who
often, to us in English, exclaimed, How pretty
she isl" a remark no more comprehended by
Marianina than if it had been pronounced
in the choicest Choctaw, so that
She (Marianina) moved on, lin maiden medita-
ton fancy free" serving US cheerfully, without
the slightest vanity or cringing subserviency. l
may say here, that out in the country, in Italy
generally-and Pompeii is fourteen miles from
Naples-the lower classes have great self-respect
and independence of feeling. But Mrs. Hen
bricks was not the only one who admired Maria
nina, for, as the sequel will show, one of our
gentlemen was smitten, and, with malice pre-
pense, was quietly meditating his little game.
OF this, however, hereafter.
How we talked of Indiana, and particularly of
her beautiful capital, so dear to us all. 1t was
something out of the ordinary, such a converse
ton in such surroundings. On one side lifted
the lofty V~esuvius, that day sending out ire
mendous volumes of smoke; south of us were
the blue mountains about La Cava, dear to Sal
vator Rosa and Claude Lorraine: east of us rose
the Apprentices, from the bosom of the lovely,
smiling Campagna 1.-THE prairie ground, extend
ing from the base of Vesuviusl, and on the lower
spurs of the mountains were medieval castle and
old Roman Notifications; while at the base of the
Appeninian range were old cities like Nola
where Augustus diedl Sarno, Nocera, Pagani,
and others, which have not changed their names
since the days of the Romans. And, to com
plete our surroundings, looking westward, we
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