No lava having ever gone over the ashes which buried Pompeia, it was much easier cleared. Three divisions are quite open. The first is a small square, which, our Cicerone told us, was the soldiers quarters. There are several small apartments round it; in one of which we saw the skeletons of seventeen poor wretches, who were confined by the ancles in an iron machine. Many other bodies were found, some of them in circumstances which plainly shew that they were endeavouring to escape when the eruption overtook them. Near the barracks, there is a theatre, and a temple of Isis; but, as all their ornaments have been removed, they have now little but their antiquity to make them worth seeing. But a little farther, two streets, with all their houses, are entirely cleared, and look like a small town, lately abandoned. The streets are just wide enough for two carriages to pass each other; and the ruts worn by the wheels, are still to be seen, as well as names, and several military figures, cut in a rough manner by the soldiers on the walls of their quarters. A path is raised on each side of the street, for foot passengers. Most of the houses have a terrace at top, in the Italian style; and some of them have baths and stoves to heat the walls. The floors, in general, are paved with mosaic of the common kind; and the sides of the rooms were all ornamented with paintings on the bare plaster, which we call _in distemper_. Some of them are exceedingly beautiful; but most of the best have been taken away. Among those that remain, the most striking are, Narcissus pining for his own figure; Orpheus and Eurydice; Diana and Endymion; variety of dogs and game; several dishes of fish, fowl and vegetables; a capital helmet; some beautiful landscapes, and light festoons of the most elegant patterns: all as perfect as the day they were painted. A little without the gates, we saw the burying-place of the Terentian family. It is a small pile, with a tower in the center, with niches for the urns, and several distorted, weeping faces on the walls. In one of the wells in the town, we found several skulls, which were thrown there when the houses were cleared out. About a quarter of a mile farther, we came to a noble villa, which, from its size, and the furniture found in it, must have belonged to some person of consequence. The lower part is inhabited by some peasants, who cultivate the garden within the court, and who presented us with some of the grapes which it produces. The cellars form three sides of a square, under the terrace in front of the house, each side one hundred and sixty feet long. We were shewn several jars, whose contents were solid, and which, at the time of the eruption, were full of wine.