The columns are of stone, plaistered with stucco and coloured. On several of them we found names scratched in Greek and Latin; probably those of the soldiers who had been quartered there. Helmets and armour for various parts of the body were discovered amongst the skeletons of some soldiers, whose hard fate had compelled them to wait on duty, at the perilous moment of the city’s approaching destruction. Dolphins and tridents, sculptured in relief on most of these relics of armour, seem to show that they had been fabricated for naval service. Some of the sculptures on the arms, probably belonging to officers, exhibit a greater variety of ornaments. The taking of Troy, wrought on one of the helmets, is beautifully executed; and much may be said in commendation of the work of several others. We were next led to the remains of a temple and altar near these barracks. From thence to some rooms floored (as indeed were almost all that have been cleared from the rubbish) with tesselated mosaic pavements of various patterns, and most of them of very excellent execution. Many of these have been taken up, and now form the floors of the rooms in the Museum at Portici, whose best ornaments of every kind are furnished from the discoveries at Pompeii. From the rooms just mentioned we descended into a subterraneous chamber, communicating with a bathing apartment. It appears to have served as a kind of office to the latter. It was probably here that the clothes used in bathing were washed. A fireplace, a capacious cauldron of bronze, and earthen vessels, proper for that purpose, found here, have given rise to the conjecture. Contiguous to this room is a small circular one with a fireplace, which was the stove to the bath. I should not forget to tell you that the skeleton of the poor laundress (for so the antiquaries will have it), who was very diligently washing the bathing clothes at the time of the eruption, was found lying in an attitude of most resigned death, not far from the washing cauldron in the office just mentioned.