Pompeii on being approached seems like a huge mound, somewhat akin in the distance to a fortified place. The excavated town itself is not visible from the road. The visitor is deposited at the door of what appears to be a sort of tavern or place of refreshment, through which, threading one’s way among tables, entrance is had to the excavations. We found the tavern filled with people taking an early dinner, or rather breakfast, rendering the access by no means an agreeable one. Here leaving with the _cameriere_ our wraps,—not without some misgivings, fortunately not realized, that we should never see them again,—we passed up a stair, and through a magazine for sale of lava ornaments, etc., the prices asked for which, as usual in show places, were exorbitantly and forbiddingly high. Outside the magazine we paid two francs each for admission and for the assistance of a guide (children being charged only a half–franc each), and procured a little French–speaking guide in smart uniform and side arms, whom we found very obliging and attentive. These guides are necessary, and must be taken, though sometimes respectable people who have been there before are allowed to go without them; perhaps not always with advantage to the ruins, as it is a very common trick with people who should know better, and who might not be expected to do such a thing, to pocket stones which can be of no use whatever to themselves, but the abstraction of which is detrimental to the place whence they are taken. On one occasion in Italy, a lady of a party in which I was—who acknowledged to being in the habit of bringing away a stone from every place to which she had been—quietly pocketed a piece of marble lying on the ground, when the custodier, who was keeping a sharp look–out, went up to her and desired her to replace it. It was a numbered piece, and he would, he said, be responsible for it to the authorities. The practice of chipping stones from a building of note, or taking up loose pieces, cannot be too severely reprehended, and ought sometimes to be punished. The guides at Pompeii are not allowed to receive any gratuity from the visitors, but they make a little by an accorded permission to sell photographs of the ruins.