Capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1893-1895, 1893-10-09

a-suIoke WIN dehcacles from paddock
and eea, and moralist musing over the
degradation of the times passes the prof.
ligate doing his best to make them
worse. Hark to the clatter and rataplan
Vt the hcofs OH the streets paved with
blocks vi basalt. See the verdured and
lowered grounds sloping into the most
beautiful bay of all the earth-the bay
Of Naples.
Listen to the rumbling chariots, car
rying convivial occupants to halls of
mlrth and masquerade and carousal.
dear the loud dash of fountains amid
the sculptured water nymphs. Notice
The weird, solemn, farreaching hum and
lin and roar of a city at the close of a
summer day. Let Pompeii sleep well
tonight, for it is the last night of peace
ful slumber before she falls into the
deep slumber of many long centuries.
The morning of the oath of August, A.
D. 70, has arrived. and the day rolls on,
and lit is 1 o'clock in the afternoon.
'Look!' say to you, standing on this
wall, as the sister of Pliny said to him,
the Roman essayist and naval command
er, on the day of which speak, as she
pointed him in the direction in which l
point you.
There is peculiar cloud on the sky;
a spotted cloud, now white, now black.
1t is Vesuvius in awful and unparalleled
eruption. Now the smoke and fire and
steam of that black monster throat rise
and spread, as, by my gesture, now de-
scribe 1t. 1t rises, u great column of
fiery darkness, higher and higher, and
then spreads out like the branches of a
tree, with midnights sinterwrapped in its
foliage, wider and wider Now the sun
goes out, and showers of pumice stone
and water from furnaces more than
seven times heated, and ashes in avail
anche after avalai che, binding and
scalding and suffocating, descend north,
south, east and west, burying deeper
and deeper in mammoth sepulcher, such
as never before or since was opened,
Stabie, Herculaneum and Pompeii.
Ashes ankle deep, girdle deep, chin deep,
ashes overhead.
Out of the houses and temples and
theaters and into the streets and down
to the beach fled many of the frantic,
but others, if not suffocated of the ashes,
were scalded to death by the heated del
uge. And then came heavier destruc-
ton in rocks after rocks, crushing in
homes and temples and theaters. No
wonder the sea receded from the beach
as though in terror, until much of the
shipping was wrecked, and no wonder
that when they lifted Pliny the elder
from the sailcloth on which he was rest
ing, under the agitations of what he had
seen, he suddenly expired.
For three days the entombment pro-
ceeded. Then the clouds lifted, and the
cursing of that Apollyon of mountains
subsided. For 1,700 years that city of
Pompeii lay buried and without any
thing to show it's place of doom. But
after 1,7O0 years of obliteration work
mans spade, digging well, strikes some
antiquities which lead to the exhuma-
tion of the city. Now walk with me
through some of the streets and into
some of the houses and amid the ruins
of basilica and Temple and amphithe-
ater.
EMOTIONS THE SCENE INSPIRES.
From the moment the guide met us at
the gate on entering Pompeii that day in
November, 1889, until he left us at the
gate on our departure, the emotion felt
was indescribable for elevation and So
lemnity aid sorrow and awe. Come and
see the petrifed bodies of the dead found
in the city, and now in the museums OF
Italy. About 450 of those embalmed by
that eruption have been recovered.
Mother and child, noble and serf, mer-
chant and beggar, are presentable and
natural after 1,700 years of burial. That
woman was found clutching her adorn-
ments when the storm of ashes and fire
began, and for ZOO years she continued
to clutch them.
There at the soldiers barracks are GA
skeletons Of brave men, who faithfully
stood guard at their post when the tenn
pest of cinders began, and after LOO
wears were still found standing guard.
There is the form of gentle womanhood
impressed upon the hardened ashes.
Pass along, and here we see the deepruts
in the basaltic pavements worn there by
the wheels of the chariots of the first
century. There, over the doorways and
in the porticoes, are works of art i'm
mortalizing the debauchery Of city,
which, Notwithstanding all its splendors,
was vestibule of perdition.
Those cutters ran with the blood OF
the gladiators, who were the prizefight-
ers of those ancient times, and it was
sword parrying sword, until, with one
skillful and stout plunge OF the sharp
edge, the mauled and gashed combatant
reeled over dead, to be carried out amld
the huzzas of enraptured spectators
We staid among those suggestive scenes
after the hour that visitors are usually
allowed there and staid until there was
not a football TO be heard within all that
city except our own. Up this silent street
and down that silent street we wander
ed. Into that windowless and roohess
home we went and came out again onto
the pavements that, now forsaken, were
once thronged with life.
And can it be that all up and down
these solemn sOlitudes, hearts more than
800 wears ago ached and rejoiced, and
feet shufied with the gait Of old age or
s.L ob;iafah olee and OVertasiled