The reader has doubtless often thought that he would like to walk the streets of the disentombed Pompeii, and has been in raptures as he imagined himself amid its remains. Yes, but let him first imagine himself _on the way to it_; for travelling does not give one the power of the magic Arabian lamp. Well, let us suppose him making the experiment of getting there. In the first place, if he does not desire the comfort of being cheated out of four times the honest price for the conveyance, he has to bargain at Naples--no, that is not the word--he has to get angry, and scold and quarrel, or at least to go through the appearance of all this, about his carriage; also about the fare to him who drives, and to him who rides behind; and perhaps about the price of the horses’ feed. You start at length; and, except that in the thronged road one is in constant dread of jolts or an upset, all goes on well for a little while; but the beggars,--here they come: they mark the foreigner at a distance, and are really such pitiful objects that one’s heart bleeds for them. The way up hill is occupied by the aged, or by cripples, or by the blind with a boy to lead them: the level spots by the more robust: and the descent by children, who start from the side of their haggard parents, and cry “miseracordia, famine, sickness,” till your ears tingle, and your fancy is filled with all kinds of diseases and their associations. And the dust, the dust! you are now off from the paved streets of Resina, and a hundred vehicles besides your own are kicking up dust enough to satisfy the ambition of twenty Napoleons: it settles on your new coat, and fills your eyes, and sets you to sneezing; and still amid it all you hear the cry of “miseracordia,” “orphans,” “famine,” “disease.” Next comes a long level spot, and here the beggars leave you; and now start up a dozen urchins, who seem so many Mercuries with winged feet, so rapidly do they follow your godship as you sail along in the cloud--of dust. They would pick your pockets, too, if they could. And now look at them; they turn heels over head, and making a wheel of their extended arms and legs, whirl along by your side: they make music for you by chuckling their chin with the fist; they pick up the dust, and, rubbing it all over their faces, then grin and wriggle, and look like so many imps escaped up from the flames of Vesuvius: and you try in vain to bribe them to stay behind by tossing them some money. They pick it up, and follow you for more. At last you are at the gate of Pompeii, and your carriage comes to a halt; but here, children, with all kinds of deformed limbs, crawl about, and dragging themselves to your feet, call upon you for compassion. And while you yield to pity and think you are doing a charitable act, you are filled with horror on being informed that, in the opinion of physicians who have examined them, their limbs have probably been distorted thus on purpose, in order to make them