Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy Part 25

Instead of hanging pictures as we do, the Pompeiians generally had them painted upon the smoothly prepared walls of their halls and saloons. The ashes of Vesuvius preserved these paintings so well that, when first exposed to the light, the coloring on them is fresh and vivid, and every line and figure clear and distinct. But the sunlight soon fades them. They are very beautiful, and teach us much about the beliefs and customs of the old city.

Lovely and graceful as were these pictures, the floors of the houses are much more wonderful. They are marvels of art. Not only are flowers and running vines and complicated designs there laid in mosaics, but pictures that startle with their life-like beauty. There are many of these, but perhaps the finest of all is the one found in the same house with the Dancing Faun. It represents a battle. A squadron of victorious Greeks is rus.h.i.+ng upon part of a Persian army. The latter are turning to flee. Those around the vanquished Persian king think only of their safety, but the king, with his hand extended towards his dying general, turns his back upon his flying forces, and invites death. Every figure in it seems to be in motion. You seem to hear the noise of battle, and to see the rage, fear, triumph, and pity expressed by the different faces. Think of such wonderful effects being produced by putting together pieces of gla.s.s and marble, colored enamel, and various stones! But, leaving all these beauties, and descending to homely everyday life, we will go into a bakery. Here is one in a good state of preservation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DISCOVERIES OF LOAVES OF BREAD BAKED EIGHTEEN HUNDRED YEARS AGO.]

It is a mill and bakery together. The Pompeiians sent their grain to the baker, and he ground it into flour, and, making it into dough, baked it and sent back loaves of bread. The mills look like huge hour-gla.s.ses. They are made of two cone-shaped stones with the small ends together. The upper one revolved, and crushed the grain between the stones. They were worked sometimes by a slave, but oftenest by a donkey. There is the trough for kneading the bread, the arched oven, the cavity below for the ashes, the large vase for water with which to sprinkle the crust and make it "s.h.i.+ny," and the pipe to carry off the smoke. In one of these ovens were found eighty-one loaves, weighing a pound each, whole, hard, and black, in the order in which they had been placed on the 23d of November, 79. Suppose the baker who placed them there had been told that eighteen hundred years would elapse before they would be taken out!

Having wandered about the city, and looked at all the streets, monuments, and dwellings, and having seen very much more than I have here described--the Forum, or Town Hall, the theatres, baths, stores, temples, the street where the tombs are--and having looked at the rude cross carved on a wall, showing that the religion of Christ had penetrated to this Pagan city--having examined all these, you will visit the amphitheatre.

To do this we must leave the part of the city that has interested us so much, and, pa.s.sing once more through the vineyards and orchards that still cover a large portion of the city, descend again into a sort of ravine, where we will find the amphitheatre. It was quite as the end of the city, next to the wall. It is a circus. The large open s.p.a.ce in the centre was called the arena. Here there were fierce and b.l.o.o.d.y fights; wild beasts fought with each other, or with men trained to the business and called gladiators, and these gladiators often fought with each other--all for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the people, who were never satisfied unless a quant.i.ty of blood was shed, and many were killed. This arena was covered with sand, and a ditch filled with water separated it from the seats.

The seats arose from this arena, tier above tier. There were three divisions of them, separating the rich from the middle cla.s.s, and these again from the slaves. It was well arranged for the comfort of the audience, having wide aisles and plenty of places of exit. The whole was covered with an awning. In the wall around the arena are the holes where thick iron bars were inserted as a precaution against the bounds of the panthers. To the right of the princ.i.p.al entrance are two square rooms with gratings where the wild beasts were kept. This amphitheatre would hold twenty thousand persons!

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE AMPHITHEATRE OF POMPEII.]

We visit this place last because it was while the amphitheatre was crowded with people intent upon the b.l.o.o.d.y spectacle; while wild beasts, and men more cruel than the beasts, were fighting together, and spectators less pitiful than either were greedily enjoying it, that suddenly the ground trembled violently. This perhaps was not perceived in the circus, on account of the excitement all were in, and the noise that was going on in the arena. But it was soon followed by a whirlwind of ashes, and lurid flashes of flame darted across the sky. The beasts were instantly tamed, and cowered down in abject terror, and the gladiators, for the first time in their lives, grew pale with fear. Then the startled crowd within the vast building heard from the streets the fearful cry: "Vesuvius is on fire!" In an instant the spectacle is forgotten; the terrified crowd rush out of the building, and happy is it for them that the architects have provided so many places of exit. Some fled towards the sea, and some to the open country. Those who reached the s.h.i.+ps were saved, but woe to those who went to their homes to collect their valuables to take with them, or who took refuge under cover in the cellars.

After the rain of ashes came a shower of blazing stones, which fell uninterruptedly, setting fire to all parts of the city and blocking up the streets with burning ma.s.ses. And then a fresh storm of ashes sweeping down would partly smother the flames, but, blocking up the doorways, would stifle those within the houses. And to add to the horror, the volumes of smoke that poured from the mountain caused a darkness deeper than night to settle on the doomed city, through which the people groped their way, except when lighted by the burning houses. What horror and confusion in the streets! Friends seeking each other with faces of utter despair; the groans of the dying mingled with the crash of falling buildings; the pelting of the fiery stones; the shrieks of women and children; the terrific peals of thunder.

So ended the day, and the dreadful scene went on far into the night.

In a few hours the silence of death fell upon the city. The ashes continued to pour steadily down upon it, and drifting into every crevice of the buildings, and settling like a closely-fitting shroud around the thousands and thousands of dead bodies, preserved all that the flames had spared for the eyes of the curious who should live centuries after. And a gray ashy hill blotted out Pompeii from the sight of that generation.

Hundreds of skeletons have already been found, and their expressive att.i.tudes tell us the story of their death. We know of the pitiful avarice and vanity of many of the rich ladies who went to their homes to save their jewels, and fell with them clutched tightly in their hands. One woman in the house of the Faun was loaded with jewels, and had died in the vain effort to hold up with her outstretched arms the ceiling that was crus.h.i.+ng down upon her. But women were not the only ones who showed an avaricious disposition in the midst of the thunders and flames of Vesuvius. Men had tried to carry off their money, and the delay had cost them their lives, and they were buried in the ashes with the coins they so highly valued. Diomed, one of the richest men of Pompeii, abandoned his wife and daughters and was fleeing with a bag of silver when he was stifled in front of his garden by noxious vapors. In the cellar of his house were found the corpses of seventeen women and children.

A priest was discovered in the temple of Isis, holding fast to an axe with which he had cut his way through two walls, and died at the third. In a shop two lovers had died in each other's arms. A woman carrying a baby had sought refuge in a tomb, but the ashes had walled them tightly in. A soldier died bravely at his post, erect before a city gate, one hand on his spear and the other on his mouth, as if to keep from breathing the stifling gases.

Thus perished in a short time over thirty thousand citizens and strangers in the city of Pompeii, now a city under the ground.

THE COACHMAN.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

When a boy sees a coachman driving two showy, high-stepping horses along the street, or, better still, over a level country road, with his long whip curling in the air, which whip he now and then flirts so as to make a sharp, cracking noise over the horses' heads, and occasionally brings down with a light flick upon the flanks of the right or left horse,--the carriage, s.h.i.+ning with varnish and plate, rolling along swiftly and smoothly,--the little boy is apt to think that coachman must be a very happy mortal.

If the man on the carriage-box sees the boy looking at him with so much admiration, he will probably throw him a jolly little laugh and a friendly nod, and, gathering up the reins and drawing them in tightly so as to arch the horses' necks and make them look prouder and more stately than before, he will give a loud crack with his curling whip-lash, and the horses will start off at a rapid trot, and the carriage will sweep around a curve in the road so gracefully that the boy's heart will be filled with envy--not of the persons in the carriage--oh, no! riding in a close carriage is a very tame and dull affair; but he will envy the driver. An ambition springs up in his mind at that instant. Of all things in the world he would rather be a coachman! That shall be his business when he grows up to be a man. And the chances are that when he goes home he tells his father so.

But if the little boy, instead of lying tucked in his warm bed, should be set down at twelve o'clock at night upon the pavement in front of that great house with the tall lamps on the steps, he would see this same coachman under conditions that he would not envy at all.

The empty carriage is close to the curb-stone, with the door swinging open as if to urge the owners to hurry and take possession. The high-stepping trotters are covered with blankets to protect them from the piercing cold, and, with their heads drooping, are either asleep or wondering why they are not put into the stable to take their night's rest; and the coachman is dancing about on the pavement to keep his feet warm--not by any means a merry kind of dance, although he moves about pretty briskly. He has taken off his gloves, for they seem to make his hands colder, and now he has thrust one hand into his pocket and is blowing on the other with all his might. His whip, that curled so defiantly in the air, is now pushed under his arm, and the lash is trailing, limp and draggled, on the stones. He is warmly clad, and his great-coat has three capes, but all cannot put sufficient heat into his body, for it is a bitter cold night, and the wind comes howling down the street as if it would like to bite off everybody's ears and noses. It shakes the leafless branches of the trees until they all seem to be moaning and groaning together. The moon is just rising over the church, and the coachman is standing right in a broad patch of its light. But moonlight, though very beautiful when you are where you can comfortably admire it, never warmed anybody yet. And so the poor coachman gets no good out of that.

There is a party in the great house. The boy is standing where he can only see the lower steps and the tall lamps, but the coachman can see that it is lighted from garret to cellar. He knows that it is warm as summer in there. There are stands of flowers all the way up the stairways, baskets of them are swinging from the ceilings, and vines are trailing over the walls.

Who in there could ever guess how bleak and cold it is outside! Ladies in s.h.i.+mmering silks and satins, and glittering with jewels, are flitting about the halls, and floating up and down the rooms in graceful dances, to the sound of music that only comes out to the coachman in fitful bursts.

He has amused himself watching all this during part of the evening, but now he is looking in at the side-light of the door to see if there are any signs of the breaking up of the party, or if those he is to take home are ready to go away. He is getting very impatient, and let us hope they will soon come out and relieve him.

GEYSERS, AND HOW THEY WORK.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GRAND GEYSER OF ICELAND.]

Geysers, or fountains of hot water or mud, are found in several parts of the world. Iceland possesses the grandest one, but in California there are a great many of these natural hot fountains, most of which throw forth mud as well as water. Some of the American Geysers are terrible things to behold. They are generally found near each other, in particular localities, and any one wandering about among them sees in one place a great pool full of black bubbling contents, so hot that an egg thrown in the spring will be boiled in a minute or two; there he sees another spring throwing up boiling mud a few feet in the air; there another one, quiet now, but which may at any time burst out and send its hot contents high above the heads of the spectators; here a great hole in the ground, out of which constantly issues a column of steam, and everywhere are cracks and crevices in the earth, out of which come little jets of steam, and which give the idea that it would not require a very heavy blow to break in, at any point, the crust of the earth, and let the adventurous traveller drop down into the boiling ma.s.s below.

In Iceland the Geysers are not quite so terrible in their aspect as those in California, but they are bad enough. Their contents are generally water, some hot and bubbling, and some hot and still; while the Great Geyser, the grandest work of the kind in the world, bursts forth at times with great violence, sending jets of hot water hundreds of feet into the air.

These wonderful hot springs, wherever they have been found, have excited the greatest attention and interest, in travellers and scientific men, and their workings have been explained somewhat in this way:--

Water having gradually acc.u.mulated in vast underground crevices and cavities, is heated by the fires, which, in volcanic regions, are not very far from the surface of the earth. If there is a channel or tube from the reservoir to the surface, the water will expand and rise until it fills the basin which is generally found at the mouth of hot springs. But the water beneath, being still further heated, will be changed into steam, which will at times burst out with great force, carrying with it a column of water high into the air. When this water falls back into the basin it is much cooler, on account of its contact with the air, and it cools the water in the basin, and also condenses the steam in the tube or channel leading from the reservoir. The spring is then quiet until enough steam is again formed to cause another eruption. A celebrated German chemist named Bunsen constructed an apparatus for the purpose of showing the operations of Geysers. Here it is.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ARTIFICIAL GEYSER.]

You see that the two fires in the engraving--one lower and larger than the other, because the heat of the earth increases as we get farther from the surface--will heat the water in the iron tube very much as water is heated in a real Geyser; and when steam enough is formed, a column of hot water is thrown out of the basin. The great subterranean reservoir is not imitated in this apparatus, but the action is the same as if the tube arose from an iron vessel. There is a great deal in Bunsen's description of this contrivance, in regard to the difference in the temperature of the water in that part of the tube between the two fires, and that in the upper portion, which explains the intermittent character of the eruptions of a Geyser, but it is not necessary for us to go into all his details.

When we know that under a Geyser the water is boiling in a great reservoir which communicates with the surface by a natural tube or spout, we need not wonder that occasionally a volume of steam bursts forth, sending a column of water far into the air.

A GIANT PUFF-BALL.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

I suppose you have all seen puff-b.a.l.l.s, which grow in the fields like mushrooms and toadstools, but I am quite sure that you never saw anything of the kind quite so large as that one in the picture. And yet that engraving was made from a drawing from the puff-ball itself.

So we need not suppose that there is anything fanciful about it.

The vegetable in question is a kind of _fungi_ called the Giganti Lycoperdon, and it attains its enormous size in one night! It springs from a seed so small that you could not see it, and grows, while you are asleep, to be bigger, perhaps, than you are yourself!

Think of that! How would you like to plant the whole garden, some afternoon, with that kind of seed? Would not your father and mother, and everybody else, be astounded when they woke up and saw a couple of hundred of those things, as big as barrels, filling up every bed!

They would certainly think it was the most astonis.h.i.+ng crop they had ever seen, and there might be people who would suppose that fairies or magicians had been about.

The great trouble about such a crop would be that it would be good for nothing.

I cannot imagine what any one would do with a barnful of Lycoperdons.

But it would be wonderfully interesting to watch the growth of such a _fungus_. You could see it grow. In one night you could see its whole life, from almost nothing at all to that enormous ball in the picture.

Nature could hardly show us a more astonis.h.i.+ng sight than that.