Soon after making this purchase, the work of sight-seeing began. Each place we visited had a man at the entrance, and not one of us could go inside without paying for the privilege. There were always a half dozen idle fellows hanging about ready to sell cameos and other curiosities which had been dug up in the vicinity, as they solemnly avowed; in reality the cameos were of modern manufacture, and made in Rome or Naples. The speculators would begin by asking fifty francs for a cameo which was worth about five, and which they would sell for five if they could not get any more. If we safely ran the gantlet through these avaricious tradesmen, we were beset by local guides who wanted to lead us, and we generally found it desirable to employ some of them in order to see what the place contained. In one instance these guides acted as pack-horses, and I can testify that one of them, at least, had all that he wanted to carry; and this is the way it happened. [Illustration: CITY OF NAPLES, BAY, AND MT. VESUVIUS.—SEAPORT OF SOUTH ITALY, NEAR THE SITES OF HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII.] [Illustration: A RIDE IN NAPLES.] At the cave of the Cumean Sibyl, where the Emperor Nero and other famous men of the olden time were accustomed to go to hear the prophecies on which their fate depended, we found a larger crowd than usual. A party of Americans were just emerging as we entered, and one of them intimated that the place laid over anything he had yet seen. Our torches were lighted, and we went forward quite a distance, through a tunnel eight or ten feet wide, out of which a smaller tunnel descended. Down this tunnel we walked until we came to the edge of a black, repulsive pool, over which the light shone very dimly. There was considerable smoke hanging over the water, and altogether the place was about as gloomy as anything I had ever seen. For all that could be discovered, the pool might be a thousand feet deep, and any number of miles across; to venture upon it might be like venturing upon the Atlantic Ocean, or any other great body of water. I noticed that the guides had their trousers rolled to the knee, and were barefooted. They fearlessly entered the water; two of them carried the torches, and three others backed themselves to the edge where there was a sort of stepping-stone. “What is to be done now?” we asked of our private guide. “Montez ze backs ze men of,” he replied. “You they carry porteez will to Grotto del Sibyl.” [Sidenote: HUMAN PACK MULES.] We hesitated to trust ourselves with these fellows, who might drown us, or throw us into a hole a few thousand feet deep, and leave us to come up again through the crater of Mount Vesuvius. But finally we concluded to try it, and so we mounted our two-legged steeds and rode off.