The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1893-10-13

y
wall, as the sister of Pljny said to him,
the Roman essayist and naval command
or, on the day of which l speak, as she
pointed him In the direction in which
point you.
There is peculiar cloud on the sky;
q 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 it. 1t rises, great column of
fiery darkness, higher and higher, and
then spreads out like the branches OF
tree, with midnights interwrapped 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 avalanche, 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,
Stable, 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
subsidized. For 1.700 years that city of
Pompeii lay buried and without any
thing to show its place of doom. But
after 1, roo years of obliteration work
mans spade, digging well, strikes some
antiquities which lead to the exhuma-
ton of the city. Now walk with NE
through some of the streets and into
some of the houses and amid the ruins
of basilica and Temple and amphithe-
alter.
EMOTIONS THE SCENE INSPIRES.
From the moment the guide met Is 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 Undesirable for elevation and So
lemnity aud sorrow and awe. Come and
see the pctrifed bodies of the dead found
in the city, and now in the museums OF
Italy. About $50 of those embalmel by
that eruption have been recovered.
Mother and child, noble and serf, iner-
chant and beggar, are presentable and
natural after 1900 years of burial. Tbui
woman was found clutching her ado;'n-
ments when the storm of ashes and ire
began and for /, roo years she continue,
to clutch them.
There at the soldiers barracks are 6
skeletons of brave men, who faithful
stood guard at their post when the teiA-
pest of cinders began, and after LOO
years were still found standing guard.
| There is the form of gentle womanhool
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,
,,,oe :, x,oc+iJ,,,1a IF Sar5ifinn
Those cutters ran with the blood of
the gladiators, who were the prizefght-
ers of those ancient times, and it was
sword parrying sword, until, with one
rkillful and stout plunge of the sharp
tdge, the mauled and gashed combatant
teeled over dead, to be carried out amid
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 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 roofess
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 years ago ached and rejoiced, and
feet shuff1ed with the gait Of old age or
danced with childish glee, and overtasked
workmen carried their burdens, and
lrunkards staggered? On that mosaic
floor did glowing youth clasp hands in
marriage VOW, and cross that threshold
did pallbearers carry the beloved dead,
and gay groups once mount those now
skeletons of staircases?
While walked and contemplated the
city seemed suddenly to be thronged
with all the population that had ever in
habited it, and heard its laughter and
groan and blasphemy and uncleanness
and Internal boast as it was on the 23d
of August, 70. And Vesuvius, from the
mild light with which it flushed the sky
that summer evening as stood in Olsen
tombed Pompeii, seemed suddenly again
to neave and fame and rock with the
lava and darkness and desolation and
woe with which more than IS centuries
ago IL suDiIieTSeu Ioliipel, do Will liit
liturgy of fire and storm the mountain
proclaimed at the burial, "Ashes to ashes
dust to dust"
My friends. cannot tell what practi
cal suggestion comes to your mind from
this walk through uncovered Pompeii
but the first thought that ahsorbs me il
that, while art and culture are impor
tant, they cannot save the morals or tn,
life Of great town. Much of the paint
ing and sculpture of Pornpeii was SO ex
quisite that, while some is kept on tn
walls where it was first penciled, to b
admired by those who go there, Who'll
wagon loads and whole rooms full of i
, have been transferred to the Museo Dor
bonico at Naples, to be admired by tn
centuries.
Those Pompeiian artists mixed sucl
durability of colors that, though thei
, paintings were buried in ashes and sec
rie for 1,7OO years, and since they wer
uncovered many of them have rename
there exposed to the rains and wind
and winters and summers of 100 years