We next saw the temples. Of the temple of AEsculapius little remains but an altar of black stone, adorned with a cornice imitating the scales of a serpent. His statue in terra-cotta was found in the cell. The temple of Isis is more perfect. It is surrounded by a portico of fluted columns, and in the area around it are two altars, and many ceppi for statues; and a little chapel of white stucco, as hard as stone, of the most exquisite proportions; its panels are adorned with figures in bas-relief, slightly indicated, but of workmanship the most delicate that can be conceived. They are Egyptian subjects executed by a Greek artist, who has humanized all the unnatural extravagance of the original conception into the supernatural loveliness of his country's genius. They scarcely touch the ground with their feet, and their wind uplifted robes seem in the place of wings. The temple in the midst, raised on a high platform and approached by steps, was decorated with exquisite paintings, some of which we saw in the museum at Porticai. It is small, of the same materials as the chapel, with a pavement of mosaic, and fluted Ionic columns of white stucco, so white that it dazzles you to look at it. Thence through other porticoes and labyrinths of walls and columns, some broken, some entire, their entablatures strewed under them. The temple of Jupiter, of Venus, and another temple, the Tribunal, and the hall of public justice with the forests of lofty columns, surround the Forum. Two pedestals or altars of an enormous size (for whether they were the altars of the temple of Venus before which they stand the guide could not tell) occupy the lower end of the Forum. At the upper end, supported on an elevated platform, stands the temple of Jupiter. Under the colonnade of its portico we sat and pulled out our oranges and figs and bread (sorry fare, you will say) and started to eat. Here was a magnificent spectacle. Above and between the multitudinous shafts of the sunshiny columns was seen the sea, reflecting the purple heaven of noon above it, and supporting, as it were, on its lips the dark lofty mountains of Sorrento, of a blue indescribably deep, and tinged toward their summits with streaks of new fallen snow. Between was one small green island. To the right was Capreae, Inarnine, Prochyta, and Misenum. Behind was the single summit of Vesuvius, rolling forth volumes of thick white smoke, whose foam-like column was sometimes darted into the clear dark sky and fell in little streaks along the wind. Between Vesuvius and the nearer mountains, as through a chasm, was seen the main line of the loftiest Apenines to the east. The day was radiated and warm. Every now and then we heard the subterranean thunder of Vesuvius; its distant and deep peals seem to shake the very air and light of day, which interpenetrated our frames with a sudden and tremendous sound. The scene was what the Greeks beheld (Pompeii, you know, was a Greek city). They lived in harmony