After having satisfied our curiosity here, we regained the light of heaven in Resina, and proceeded to Pompeii, which is seven miles further, the total distance from Naples to Pompeii being ten miles. The part of Pompeii already discovered looks like a town with the houses unroofed situated in a deep gravel or sand pit, the depth of which is considerably greater than the height of the buildings standing in it. You descend into it from the brink, which is on a level with the rest of the country; Pompeii is consequently exposed to the open air, and you have neither to go under ground, nor to use _flambeaux_ as at Herculaneum, but simply to descend as into a pit. There is always a guard stationed at Pompeii to protect the place from delapidation and thefts of antiquarians. From its resembling, as I have already said, a town in the centre of a deep gravel pit, you come upon it abruptly and on looking down you are surprized to see a city newly brought to day. The streets and houses here remain entire, the roofs of the houses excepted, which fell in by the effect of the excavation; so that you here behold a Roman city nearly in the exact state it was hi when it was buried under the ashes of Vesuvius, during its first eruption in the year 79 of the Christian era. It does not appear to me that the catastrophe of Pompeii could have been occasioned by an earthquake, for if so the streets and houses would not be found upright and entire: it appears rather to have been caused by the showers of ashes and _écroulement_ of the mountain, which covered it up and buried it for ever from the sight of day. The first place our guide took us to see was a superb Amphitheatre about half as large as the Coliseum: the arena and seats are perfect, and all the interior is perfectly cleared out: so are the dens where the wild beasts were kept; so that you look down into this amphitheatre as into a vast basin standing on its brink, which is on a level with the rest of the ground around it, and by means of the seats and passages you may descend into the _arena_. This Amphitheatre is at a short distance from the rest of the town. What is at present discovered of this city consists of a long street with several off-sets of streets issuing from it: a temple, two theatres, a praetorium, a large barrack, and a peculiarly large house or villa belonging probably to some eminent person, but no doubt when the excavation shall be recommenced many more streets will be discovered, as from the circumstance of there being an amphitheatre, two other theatres and a number of sepulchral monuments outside the gates, it must have been a city of great consequence. Most of the houses seem to have had two stories; the roofs fell in of course by the act of excavation, but the columns remain entire. I observe that the general style of building in Pompeii in most of the houses is as follows: that in each building there is a court