The Bossier banner., 1893-11-09

ing over the ueBTdudGiOl VI tho CiLhOo
passes the profigate doing his best to
make them worse. Hark to the clatter
and rataplan of the hoofs on the streets
paved with blocks of 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 chari-
OTIS, carrying convivial occupants
to halls of mirth and masquerade
and carousal. Hear the loud dash of
fountains amid the sculptured water
nymphs Notice the weird, solemn,
far-reaching hum and din and roar of
a city at the close of summer day.
Let Pompeii sleep well tonight, for it
| is the last night of peaceful slumber
before she falls into the deep slumb ber
| of many long centuries The morning
of the oath of August, A. D., 10, has ar
rived, and the day rolls on, and it is
one o'clock in the afternoon: "LoOk!"
I say to you, standing on this wall, as
| the sister of Pliny said to him, the
Roman essayist and naval commander,
on the day of which l speak, as she
pointed him in the direction in which
| I 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 gester, l now describe it.
1t rises, great column of fiery dark
ness, higher and higher, and then
spreads out like the branches of tree
with midnights interwrapped in it's
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
avalanche after avalanche, binding
and scalding and suffocating, descend,
north south, east and west, burying
deeper and deeper in mammoth sepul-
cher, 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 suffo-
Gated of the ashes were scalded
to death by the heated deluge.
And then came heavier destruction 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 sail cloth on which he wa:
resting under the agitations of whar
he had seen, he suddenly expired. Fol
three days the enrichment proceeded
Then the clouds lifted and the cursine
of that Apollyon of mountains sub
sided. For seventeen hundred year
that city of Pompeii lay buried ant
without anything to show its place o
doom. But after seventeen hundred
years of obliteration, u workman
> spade. digging a well, strikes SOM
antiquities which lead to the eXhuma
!. tion of the city. Now walk with M
through some of the streets and int.
: some of the houses and amid the ruin
of Basilica, and temple and amphi
, theater.
From the moment the guide met u
at the gate on entering Pompeii tha
|, Il day in November, 1889, until he left u
l. at the gate on our departure, the emo
. !. tion felt was indescribable for eleva
~ ton and solemnity, and sorrow an
D awe. Come and see the petrifed bodie
of the dead found in the city, and nov
in the museums of Italy. About fo
I hundred and fifty of those embalme
l.
Mother and child, noble and serf, mel
- chant and beggar, are presentable an
D natural after seventeen hundred year
ID of burial. That woman was foun
D. clutching her adornments when tn
- storm of ashes and fire began, an
Il for seventeen hundred years she cor
l tinued to clutch them. There at tn
x soldiers barracks are sixty-four skel,
- tons of brave men, who faithfully stoo
~ guard at their post when the te mpte:
e of cinders began, and after seventee
= hundred years were still found stant
10 ing guard. There is the form of gent1
= womanhood impressed upon the har
"a ened ashes. Pass along and here W
D see the deep ruts in the basaltic paw
q ments worn there by the wheels of tt
% chariots of the first century. Their
70 over the doorways and in the portico
. are works of art immortalizing the d
L bauchery of city, which notwit
standing all it's splendors, was a vest
sc bule of perdition. Those cutters ra
~ with the blood of the gladiators WI
., were the prize fighters of those anciel
~ = times and it was sword parryir
20 sword, until, with one slzillful an
lo stout plunge of the sharp edge, Il
mauled and gashed combatant reele
o over dead, to be carried out amid tt
huzzas of enraptured spectators. Y
= staid among those suggestive seen,
10 after the hour that visitors are usual
allowed there, and staid until the
q was not football to be heard with
d all that city, except our own. Up tn
silent street and down that silent sire
= we wandered. Into that windowle
VI and roofess home we went and car
% out again on the pavements that, no
W. forsaken, were once thronged wi
ST life.
w And can IL he that all nm and dou