It is not the custom even of the modern Italians to use
corks for the wine they keep for their own use: a spoonful of oil is poured
on the top of the wine in the flask and when they mean to drink it they
extract the oil by means of a lump of cotton fastened to a stick or long
pin which enters the neck of the flask and absorbs and extracts the oil.
Among the buildings discovered in Pompeii is a large Temple of Isis; here
you behold the altar and the pillar to which the beasts of sacrifice were
fastened. In this temple at the time of the first excavation were found all
the instruments of sacrifice and other things appertaining to the worship
of that Goddess. These and other valuables such as statues, coins, utensils
of all sorts were removed to Portici, where they are now to be seen in the
Museum of that place. The Praetorium at Pompeii is the next remarkable
thing; it is a vast enclosure: a great number of columns are standing
upright here and the most of them entire; the steps forming the ascent to
the elevated seat where the Praetor usually sat, remain entire. There is a
large building and court yard near one of the gates of the city supposed to
have been a barrack for soldiers; three skeletons were found here with
their legs in a machine similar to our stocks. The scribbling and
caricatures on the walls of this barrack are perfectly visible and legible.
When one wanders thro' the streets of this singularly interesting city, one
is tempted to think that the inhabitants have just walked out. What a
dreadful lingering death must have befallen these inhabitants who could not
escape from Pompeii at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius which covered
it with ashes. The air could only be exhausted by degrees, so that a
prolonged suffocation or a death by hunger must have been their lot.
Four skeletons were found upright in the streets, having in their hands
boxes containing jewellery and things of value, as if in the act of
endeavouring to make their escape: these must soon have perished, but the
skeleton of a woman found in one of the rooms of the houses close to a bath
shews that her death must have been one of prolonged suffering.
What a fine subject Pompeii would furnish for the pen of a Byron! As I have
before remarked, all the valuables and utensils of all sorts found here
have been removed to Portici; it is a great pity that everything could not
be left in Pompeii in the exact situation in which it was found on its
first discovery at the excavation. What a light it would have thrown (which
no description can give) on the melancholy catastrophe as well as on the
private life and manners of the ancients!
