We were anxious upon our return to Naples to have ascended Vesuvius, at least as far as the Observatory, but unfortunately a heavy cloud hung over the mountain, and reluctantly we had to give it up. Instead, we took a drive to Puteoli, or, as it is now called, Pozzuoli, about two hours distant. Our way lay through the grotto of Posilipo, which is lighted up with gas, and is about a third of a mile long, about 21 feet wide, and varies in height from 70 to 25 feet; thence along an uninteresting road till again we reached the sea, when the islands and Puteoli looked very picturesque. One could hardly imagine from its appearance that it was formerly a great Roman port; but it has been subjected to many changes, and bears evidence of the forces below agitating the ground, by which some parts have been alternately submerged and upheaved, and the recurrence of such events would be sufficient of themselves to account for its desertion. Here we drove over the southern termination of the Appian Way, paved with the large old Roman stones; and our coachman pointed out the part of the old Roman pier (now in fragments, like a row of giant stepping–stones lifting their heads above water) at which he alleged the Apostle Paul had landed. There are some ruined temples in Puteoli and its neighbourhood, and the ruins of a large amphitheatre, which the guide said had held 45,000, but, as is more credibly stated by others, 25,000 spectators, for it is not so large or so imposing as that at Nismes, while the measurements are considerably less,—Nismes exceeding it in length by 75 feet, and in breadth by 120 feet. Chambers underneath were discovered in 1838, and are very interesting. They contained dens for the confinement of the wild beasts, and rooms where the gladiators were trained to fight. We had, previous to entering Puteoli, taken a side road to Solfatara. This is a scarcely extinct crater, supposed to have a direct communication underground with Vesuvius, twelve miles distant. However, there has been no eruption since 1198, when it sent forth a current of lava. A man who appeared as guide threw a heavy stone upon the probably thin crust of sulphurous matter constituting the ground over which we were treading; the reverberation from the fall indicated that it was hollow below, and in all likelihood a slender protection from a fiery furnace which it might not be safe to expose to the air and light of day. And as Solfatara is quiescent when Vesuvius is active, and active when Vesuvius is quiescent, which it then was, the thought, as we were intruding upon the domains of these angry forces of nature, that some sudden impulse might burst the earthy covering and blow us all up into the air, like Paul Pry peering about the steamboat when the boiler burst, was not comfortable. The guide took us to a hole from which sulphurous fumes were issuing, and for a few coppers entered it at some risk of suffocation, and by means of a long stick pulled