beautiful fluted pillars and other decorations, sometimes in marble, still standing, while the walls were tastefully decorated with that peculiar description of painting well known as Pompeian. Some of the houses appear to be only one storey high, but stairs indicate a second storey, and it is even supposed that in some cases there may have been a third. But they had no appearance to the street, while the streets themselves are narrow, so much so that it is impossible to see how in many of them even the smallest carriages could pass each other without encroaching on the equally narrow footway or _trottoir_ (discovery of the remains of it here revealing its use in ancient times); but the large stones or slabs forming the street pavement are in some places marked with a deep rut, indicating a good deal of carriage traffic. The shops on the streets are small, and are sometimes built into the dwellings, so that shop floors then were probably as remunerative as they seem to be now with ourselves, although persons now in similar rank of life in Great Britain would little like to allow a portion of their mansions to be so occupied. As, however, the streets were so confined, there could have been no view from the house itself upon the front facing the street; yet, no doubt, from some windows in the upper apartments behind there might be fine glimpses of the bay and of Vesuvius, as well as of the surrounding country. At all events, we obtained excellent views from the ruins, especially from the walls. Vesuvius appears close at hand, and one feels astonished at the foolhardiness of people building towns and houses so close under the fiery mountain after the tremendous warnings received in the destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum. We were shown at one place in the ‘House of Diomede’ a long vault or cellar, in which the remains were found of seventeen unfortunate persons who had taken refuge there during the awful time when they knew not where to flee, and supposed that the walls of the house would cover them from calamity. We could not look upon such places without thinking what an appalling time it must have been, and what heartrending agonies must then have been endured. Notwithstanding all the elegance of the public portions of the houses, and perhaps even of the private chambers, it seemed as if the actual comfort of the inhabitants could not be great, and especially in the matter of bedroom accommodation, for I imagine the sleeping–rooms were of the smallest dimensions—mere closets, not such as people of the present day in good circumstances would approve. * * * * *