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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rollo in Naples, by Jacob Abbott
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Rollo in Naples
+
+Author: Jacob Abbott
+
+Release Date: February 2, 2008 [EBook #24488]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROLLO IN NAPLES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by D. Alexander and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ ROLLO IN NAPLES,
+
+ BY
+
+ JACOB ABBOTT.
+
+
+ BOSTON:
+
+ PUBLISHED BY TAGGARD AND THOMPSON.
+
+ M DCCC LXIV.
+
+
+
+
+ Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by
+
+ JACOB ABBOTT,
+
+ In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
+ Massachusetts.
+
+ ELECTROTYPED AT THE
+ BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY.
+
+ RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:
+
+ PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON.
+
+
+ [Illustration: THE ORANGE GARDEN.--See page 218.]
+
+ [Illustration: ROLLO'S TOUR IN EUROPE.
+ TAGGARD & THOMPSON. Publishers--Boston.]
+
+
+
+
+ ROLLO'S TOUR IN EUROPE.
+
+
+ ORDER OF THE VOLUMES
+
+ ROLLO ON THE ATLANTIC.
+ ROLLO IN PARIS.
+ ROLLO IN SWITZERLAND.
+ ROLLO IN LONDON.
+ ROLLO ON THE RHINE.
+ ROLLO IN SCOTLAND.
+ ROLLO IN GENEVA.
+ ROLLO IN HOLLAND.
+ ROLLO IN NAPLES.
+ ROLLO IN ROME.
+
+
+ PRINCIPAL PERSONS OF THE STORY.
+
+ ROLLO; twelve years of age.
+ MR. and MRS. HOLIDAY; Rollo's father and mother, travelling in Europe.
+ THANNY; Rollo's younger brother.
+ JANE; Rollo's cousin, adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Holiday.
+ MR. GEORGE; a young gentleman, Rollo's uncle.
+
+
+
+
+ CONTENTS.
+
+
+ CHAPTER                                           PAGE
+
+    I.--THE VETTURINO,                              13
+   II.--CONTRACTS AND AGREEMENTS,                   37
+  III.--THE JOURNEY,                                57
+   IV.--SITUATION OF NAPLES,                        76
+    V.--PLANNING THE ASCENSION,                     91
+   VI.--GOING UP,                                  106
+  VII.--THE SUMMIT,                                131
+ VIII.--POMPEII,                                   157
+   IX.--THE MUSEUM,                                174
+    X.--THE STREETS,                               188
+   XI.--AN EXCURSION,                              194
+  XII.--THE ORANGE GARDENS,                        213
+
+
+
+
+ ENGRAVINGS.
+
+
+                                                   PAGE
+
+ THE ORANGE GARDEN,                      (Frontispiece.)
+ TRAVELLING IN ITALY,                               11
+ A CHURCH AT FLORENCE,                              23
+ READING THE ARTICLES,                              55
+ EMBLEMS ON THE CROSS,                              63
+ ASCENDING THE MOUNTAINS,                           67
+ SITUATION OF NAPLES,                               77
+ VIEW THROUGH THE GLASS,                            87
+ CALASH COMING INTO NAPLES,                        111
+ THE ASCENT,                                       127
+ VIEW OF THE CRATER,                               137
+ COMING DOWN,                                      153
+ THE MOSAIC,                                       183
+ THE PUBLIC GARDENS,                               197
+
+
+[Illustration: TRAVELLING IN ITALY.]
+
+
+
+
+ROLLO IN NAPLES.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE VETTURINO.
+
+
+If ever you make a journey into Italy, there is one thing that you will
+like very much indeed; and that is the mode of travelling that prevails
+in that country. There are very few railroads there; and though there
+are stage coaches on all the principal routes, comparatively few people,
+except the inhabitants of the country, travel in them. Almost all who
+come from foreign lands to make journeys in Italy for pleasure, take
+what is called a _vetturino_.
+
+There is no English word for _vetturino_, because where the English
+language is spoken, there is no such thing. The word comes from the
+Italian word _vettura_, which means a travelling carriage, and it
+denotes the man that owns the carriage, and drives it wherever the party
+that employs him wishes to go. Thus there is somewhat the same relation
+between the Italian words _vettura_ and _vetturino_ that there is
+between the English words _chariot_ and _charioteer_.
+
+The Italian _vetturino_, then, in the simplest English phrase that will
+express it, is a _travelling carriage man_; that is, he is a man who
+keeps a carriage and a team of horses, in order to take parties of
+travellers with them on long journeys, wherever they wish to go. Our
+word _coachman_ does not express the idea at all. A coachman is a man
+employed by the owner of a carriage simply to drive it; whereas the
+vetturino is the proprietor of his establishment; and though he
+generally drives it himself, still the driving is only a small part of
+his business. He might employ another man to go with him and drive, but
+he would on that account be none the less the vetturino.
+
+The vetturino usually takes the entire charge of the party, and provides
+for them in every respect,--that is, if they make the arrangement with
+him in that way, which they generally do, inasmuch as, since they do
+not, ordinarily, know the language of the country, it is much more
+convenient for them to arrange with him to take care of them than to
+attempt to take care of themselves. Accordingly, in making a journey of
+several days, as, for example, from Genoa to Florence, from Florence to
+Rome, or from Rome to Venice, or to Naples, the vetturino determines the
+length of each day's journey; he chooses the hotels where to stop, both
+at noon and for the night; he attends to the passports in passing the
+frontiers, and also to the examination of the baggage at the custom
+houses; and on arriving at the hotels he orders what the travellers
+require, and settles the bill the next morning. For all this the
+travellers pay him one round sum, which includes every thing. This sum
+consists of a certain amount for the carriage and horses, and an
+additional amount of about a dollar and a half or a dollar and three
+quarters a day, as agreed upon beforehand, for hotel expenses on the
+way. Thus, by this mode of travelling, the whole care is taken off from
+the traveller's mind, and he has nothing to do during the daytime but to
+sit in his carriage and enjoy himself, and at night to eat, drink,
+sleep, and take his comfort at the hotel.
+
+It was at Florence that Mr. George and Rollo first commenced to travel
+with a vetturino. They came to Florence by steamer and railway; that is,
+by steamer to Leghorn, and thence across the country by railway.
+Florence is a very pretty place, with the blue and beautiful River Arno
+running through the middle of it, and ancient stone bridges leading
+across the river from side to side. The town is filled with magnificent
+churches and palaces, built, some of them, a thousand years ago, and all
+so richly adorned with sculptures, paintings, bronzes, and mosaics, that
+the whole world flock there to see them. People go there chiefly in the
+winter. At that season the town is crowded with strangers. A great many
+people, too, go there in the winter to avoid the cold weather which
+prevails at that time of the year, in all the more northerly countries
+of Europe.
+
+There is so little winter in Florence that few of the houses have any
+fireplaces in them except in the kitchen. When there comes a cold day,
+the people warm themselves by means of a jug or jar of earthen ware,
+with a handle passing over across the top, by which they carry it about.
+They fill these jars half full of hot embers, and so carry them with
+them wherever they want to go. The women, when they sit down, put the
+jar under their dresses on the floor or pavement beneath them, and the
+men place it right before them between their feet.
+
+You will see market women and flower girls sitting in the corners of the
+streets in the winter, attending to their business, and keeping
+themselves warm all the time with these little fire jars; and artists
+in the palaces and picture galleries, each with one of them by his side,
+or close before him, while he is at work copying the works of the great
+masters, or making drawings from the antique statues.
+
+There is another very curious use that the people of Florence make of
+these jars; and that is they warm the beds with them when any body is
+sick, so as to require this indulgence. You would think it very
+difficult to warm a bed with an open jar filled with burning embers. The
+way they do it is this: they hang the jar in the inside of a sort of
+wooden cage, shaped like a bushel basket, and about as large. They turn
+this cage upside down, and hang the jar up in it by means of a hook
+depending inside. They turn down the bed clothes and put the cage in it,
+jar of coals and all. They then put back the bed clothes, and cover the
+cage all up. They leave it so for a quarter of an hour, and then,
+carefully turning the clothes down again, they take the jar out, and the
+bed is warmed.
+
+But to return to Mr. George and Rollo. They engaged a vetturino for the
+first time at Florence. Mr. George had gone to Florence chiefly for the
+purpose of examining the immense collections of paintings and statuary
+which exist there. Rollo went, not on account of the paintings or
+statues,--for he did not care much about such things,--but because he
+liked to go any where where he could see new places, and be entertained
+by new scenes. Accordingly, while Mr. George was at work in the
+galleries of Florence, studying, by the help of catalogues, the famous
+specimens of ancient art, Rollo was usually rambling about the streets,
+observing the manners and customs of the people, and watching the
+singular and curious scenes that every where met his eye.
+
+The reason why there are so many paintings and sculptures in Italy is
+this: in the middle ages, it was the fashion, in all the central parts
+of Europe, for the people to spend almost all their surplus money in
+building and decorating churches. Indeed, there was then very little
+else that they could do. At the present time, people invest their funds,
+as fast as they accumulate them, in building ships and railroads, docks
+for the storage of merchandise, houses and stores in cities, to let for
+the sake of the rent, and country seats, or pretty private residences of
+various kinds, for themselves. But in the middle ages very little could
+be done in the way of investments like these. There were no railroads,
+and there was very little use for ships. There was no profit to be
+gained by building houses and stores, for there were so many wars and
+commotions among the people of the different towns and kingdoms, that
+nothing was stable or safe. For the same reason it was useless for men
+to spend their money in building and ornamenting their own houses, for
+at the first approach of an enemy, the town in which they lived was
+likely to be sacked, and their houses, and all the fine furniture which
+they might contain, would be burned or destroyed.
+
+But the churches were safe. The people of the different countries had so
+much veneration for sacred places, and for every thing connected with
+religion, that they were afraid to touch or injure any thing that had
+been consecrated to a religious use. To plunder a church, or a convent,
+or an abbey, or to do any thing to injure or destroy the property that
+they contained, was regarded as _sacrilege_; and sacrilege they deemed a
+dreadful crime, abhorred by God and man. Thus, while they would burn and
+destroy hundreds of dwellings without any remorse, and turn the wretched
+inmates out at midnight into the streets to die of exposure, terror, and
+despair, they would stop at once when they came to the church, afraid to
+harm it in any way, or to touch the least thing that it contained.
+Accordingly, while every thing else in a conquered town was doomed to
+the most reckless destruction, all that was in the church,--the most
+delicate paintings, and the most costly gold and silver images and
+utensils--were as safe as if they were surrounded by impregnable castle
+walls.
+
+Of course these notions were very mistaken ones. According to the
+teachings of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, it must be a greater sin
+to burn down the cottage of a poor widow, and turn her out at midnight
+into the streets to die, than to plunder for gain the richest altar in
+the world.
+
+From these and various other similar causes, it happened that, in the
+middle ages,--that is, from five hundred to a thousand years
+ago,--almost all the great expenditures of money, in all the great
+cities and towns of Europe, were made for churches. Sometimes these
+churches were so large that they were several hundred years in building.
+One generation would begin, another would continue, and a third would
+finish the work; that is, provided the finishing work was ever done.
+Great numbers of them remain unfinished to the present day, and always
+will remain so.
+
+It is generally, however, the exterior which remains incomplete. Within
+they are magnificent beyond description. They are so profusely adorned
+with altars, chapels, crucifixes, paintings, vessels of gold and
+silver, and with sculptures and monuments of every kind, that on
+entering them one is quite bewildered with the magnificence of the
+scene.
+
+There are a great many different altars where divine service may be
+performed, some arranged along the sides of the church, in the recesses
+between the pillars, and others in the transepts, and in various little
+chapels opening here and there from the transepts and the aisles; and so
+extensive and vast is the interior that sometimes four or five different
+congregations are engaged in worship in different parts of the church at
+the same time, without at all disturbing one another.
+
+One of the most celebrated of these great churches is the cathedral at
+Florence, where Mr. George and Rollo were now staying. There is a
+representation of it on the next page, which will give you some idea of
+its form, though it can convey no conception of its immense magnitude.
+
+The dome that surmounts the centre of the building is the largest in the
+world. It was a hundred years after the church was commenced before the
+dome was put on. The dome is about a hundred and forty feet wide from
+side to side, and almost as high as it is wide. It is more than a
+hundred and thirty feet high, which is enough for twelve or fifteen
+stories of a good-sized house. And this is the dome alone. The whole
+height of the church, from the ground to the top of the cross, is nearly
+four hundred feet. You will get a better idea of how high this is, if
+you ask of your father, or of some one that knows, what the height is of
+some tall steeple near where you live.
+
+When the architect who conceived the idea of finishing the church by
+putting this dome upon it first proposed it, the other architects of the
+town declared that it could not be done. It was impossible, they said,
+to build so large a dome on the top of so lofty a building. But he
+insisted that it was not impossible. He could not only build the dome at
+that height, but he could first build an octagonal lantern, he said, on
+the top of the church, and then build the dome upon that, which would
+carry the dome up a great deal higher. At last they consented to let him
+make the attempt; and he succeeded. You see the dome in the engraving,
+and the octagonal lantern beneath it, on which it rests. The lantern is
+the part which has the round windows.
+
+You see to the left of the church, at the farther end, a tall, square
+tower. This is the bell tower. There are six bells in it. It was
+designed to have a spire upon it, but the spire has not yet been built,
+and perhaps it never will be.
+
+[Illustration: A CHURCH AT FLORENCE.]
+
+This bell tower alone cost an enormous sum of money. It is faced on
+every side, as indeed the church itself is, with different colored
+marbles, and the four walls of it, on the outside, are so profusely
+adorned with sculptures, statues, and other costly and elaborate
+architectural decorations, that it would take a week to examine them
+fully in detail.
+
+The part of the church which is presented to view in the engraving is
+the end. The front proper is on a line with the farther side of the bell
+tower. The engraving does not show us the length of the edifice at all,
+except so far as we gain an idea of it by the long procession which we
+see at the side. As I have already said, the length is more than five
+hundred feet, which is nearly half a quarter of a mile.
+
+The putting on of the dome was considered the greatest achievement in
+the building of the church; and the architect who planned and
+superintended the work gained for himself immortal honor. After his
+death a statue of him was made, and placed in a niche in the wall of the
+houses on one side of the square, opposite the dome. He is represented
+as sitting in a chair, holding a plan of the work in his hand, and
+looking up to see it as it appeared completed. We can just see this
+statue in the foreground of the picture, on the left.
+
+And now I must return to the story.
+
+While Mr. George and Rollo were in Florence, Rollo was occupied mainly,
+as I have already said, in rambling about the town, and observing the
+scenes of real and active life, which every where met his view in the
+streets and squares, while Mr. George spent his time chiefly in the
+churches, and in the galleries of painting and sculpture, studying the
+works of art. One morning after breakfast, Mr. George was going to the
+great gallery in the palace of the grand duke, to spend the day there.
+Rollo said that he would walk with him a little way. So they walked
+together along the street which led by the bank of the river.
+
+"Uncle George," said Rollo, "how much longer is it going to take for you
+to study these paintings and statues till you are satisfied?"
+
+"Five or ten years," said Mr. George.
+
+"O uncle George!" exclaimed Rollo; "I have seen as much of them as _I_
+want to see already."
+
+"You have not seen one of them yet," said Mr. George.
+
+"Not seen one of them!" repeated Rollo.
+
+"No, not one of them," replied Mr. George.
+
+"I don't know what you mean by that," said Rollo.
+
+"I'll show you what I mean some time or other," said Mr. George, "when
+you are in one of the galleries with me."
+
+"I should like to have you," said Rollo; "but now I really want to know
+when you are going to be ready to go on towards Naples. I'd rather see
+Mount Vesuvius than all the paintings in the world, especially if there
+is a good blazing eruption coming out of it, and plenty of red-hot
+stones."
+
+"The first question to be settled," said Mr. George, "is, how we shall
+go."
+
+"Are there more ways than one?" asked Rollo.
+
+"Yes," said Mr. George; "there are three or four ways. We are here at
+Florence, in the interior of the country, and Rome is also in the
+interior; but there is a seaport on the coast for each city. So we can
+go from here to Leghorn, which is the seaport for Florence, by the
+railroad, and there we can take a steamboat and go to Civita Vecchia,
+which is the seaport for Rome. There we can land and go up to Rome in
+some sort of a carriage."
+
+"I like that way," said Rollo. "I like that best of all. There are a
+railroad and a steamboat both in it."
+
+"Another way," continued Mr. George, "is, we can go by the malle
+post."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: The malle post is a sort of despatch carriage, that takes
+the mails. It can take also two or three passengers. They change horses
+very often with the malle post, and drive very fast.]
+
+"I should like to go by the malle post," said Rollo; "they keep the
+horses on the gallop almost all the way."
+
+"Then again," continued Mr. George, "if we choose we can engage a
+vetturino."
+
+"Yes," said Rollo; "there are plenty of them always standing out here by
+the bridge. They ask me almost, every day, when I go by, whether I want
+a carriage. 'Want a carriage, sir,' they say, 'to go to Rome, to Naples,
+to Venice, to Genoa?'"
+
+Here Rollo repeated the words of the vetturini, imitating the peculiar
+intonations with which they spoke, in quite a skilful manner: "To Rome!
+Naples! Venice! Nice! Genoa!"
+
+"Yes," said Mr. George, "those are the men."
+
+"And, come to think of it," said Rollo, "I believe, after all, I would
+rather go with a vetturino. We ride along so pleasantly day after day,
+and go through all the towns, cracking our whip, and seeing so many
+curious things all along the road side!"
+
+"Yes," said Mr. George; "but there is one difficulty. We are only two,
+and the carriages of the vetturini are usually large enough for four or
+six."
+
+"And would not they go for two?" asked Rollo.
+
+"O, yes," said Mr. George; "they will go for two; but then the men must
+have full price for their carriage and horses, and that makes it very
+expensive for two."
+
+"What do people do, then," asked Rollo, "when there are only two to go?"
+
+"They generally find some other people that want to go," replied Mr.
+George, "and make up a party, and so divide the expense."
+
+"And can't we do that?" asked Rollo.
+
+"We do not know any body here," said Mr. George.
+
+Rollo did not know what to say to this, and so he was silent, and walked
+along, thinking what it was best to do. Presently, after a moment's
+pause, he added,--
+
+"I mean to ask some of the vetturinos if they have not got a carriage
+for two."
+
+"_Vetturini_ is the plural of vetturino, in Italian," said Mr. George,
+"and not vetturinos."
+
+"But I am not speaking Italian," said Rollo; "I am speaking English."
+
+"True," said Mr. George.
+
+At this stage of the conversation Mr. George and Rollo arrived at the
+end of the bridge across the Arno, which Mr. George had to pass over in
+going to his gallery. This bridge is a very ancient one, and is quite a
+curiosity, as it is built massively of stone, and is lined with a row of
+shops on each side, so that in passing over it you would think it was a
+street instead of a bridge, were it not that the shops are so small that
+you can look directly through them, and see the river through the
+windows on the back side.
+
+These shops are occupied by jewellers, who keep for sale the mosaic
+pins, bracelets, and earrings, for which Florence is so famous, and
+great numbers of these mosaics, as well as various other kinds of
+jewelry, are exposed to view in little show cases that are arranged in a
+curious manner, on small counters before the windows, so that any one
+can see them all in passing along.
+
+On reaching this bridge, Rollo concluded to stop, and look at the
+mosaics, and so his uncle left him and went on alone.
+
+As Rollo was standing at one of the little shop windows a few minutes
+after his uncle had left him, a man dressed in a blue frock, and with a
+sort of woollen comforter of bright colors about his neck, came up to
+him, and asked him in French whether the party that he belonged to did
+not want a carriage to go to Rome. Rollo perceived at once that the man
+was a vetturino.
+
+"I don't know but that we do," said he. "Have you got a carriage?"
+
+"Yes," replied the vetturino; "I have got a large and very nice
+carriage, and four excellent horses."
+
+"Then it won't do," said Rollo, "for there are only two in our party,
+and a large carriage and four horses will be more than we need."
+
+"O, but that will make no difference," said the vetturino. "You see I'm
+a return, and I will take you about as cheap as you can go in a small
+carriage."
+
+"For how much?" asked Rollo.
+
+"Why, my price is three napoleons a day," said the vetturino, "for a
+full party; but as you are only two, I will take you for less. Have you
+got a great deal of baggage?"
+
+"No; very little," said Rollo.
+
+After some further conversation with the vetturino, Rollo concluded to
+make an appointment with him to come to the hotel that evening and see
+his uncle George.
+
+"Come immediately after dinner," said Rollo.
+
+"At what time?" asked the vetturino.
+
+"Why, we dine at half past six," said Rollo, "and uncle George will be
+through at eight."
+
+"Then I will come at eight," said the vetturino.
+
+One reason why Rollo concluded to make this appointment was, that he
+particularly liked the vetturino's appearance. He had an open and
+intelligent countenance, and his air and bearing were such as to give
+Rollo the idea that he was a very good-natured and sociable, as well as
+capable man. In answer to a question from Rollo, he said that his name
+was Vittorio.
+
+When Mr. George came home that evening, a short time before dinner,
+Rollo told him what he had done.
+
+"Good!" said Mr. George. "We are in luck. I should not be surprised if
+we should be able to fill his carriage for him. I have found a party."
+
+Mr. George further stated to Rollo that, in rambling through the rooms
+of the gallery where he had been spending the day, he had met with a
+lady of his acquaintance who was travelling with two children and a
+maid, and that he had been talking with her about forming a party to
+travel together to Naples.
+
+"Are the children girls or boys?" asked Rollo.
+
+"One of them is a girl and the other is a boy," said Mr. George; "but
+the girl is sick."
+
+"Is she?" asked Rollo.
+
+"At least she has been sick," said Mr. George. "She has had a fever, but
+now she is slowly getting well. Her name is Rosalie."
+
+"I think that is rather a sentimental name," said Rollo.
+
+"They call her Rosie, sometimes," said Mr. George.
+
+"That's a little better," said Rollo, "but not much. And what is her
+other name?"
+
+"Gray," said Mr. George.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Vittorio came at eight o'clock that evening, according to appointment.
+The first thing that Mr. George did was to propose to go and see his
+carriage. So they all went together to see it. It was in a stable near
+by. Mr. George and Rollo were both well pleased with the carriage. It
+had four seats inside, like an ordinary coach. Besides these there were
+two good seats outside, under a sort of canopy which came forward over
+them like a chaise top. In front of these, and a little lower down, was
+the driver's seat.
+
+The inside of such a coach is called the interior.[B] The place outside,
+under the chaise top, is called the _coupe_.[C] Rollo generally called
+it the _coop_.
+
+[Footnote B: In French, _l'interieur_.]
+
+[Footnote C: Pronounced _coopay_, only the last syllable is spoken
+rather short.]
+
+The chaise top in front could be turned back, so as to throw the two
+seats there entirely open. In the same manner the top of the interior
+could be opened, so as to make the carriage a barouche.
+
+"It is just exactly such a carriage as we want," said Rollo, "if Mrs.
+Gray will only let you and me have the coop."
+
+"We'll see about that," said Mr. George.
+
+Mr. George then proceeded to discuss with Vittorio the terms and
+conditions of the agreement which should be made between them, in case
+the party should conclude to hire the carriage; and after ascertaining
+precisely what they were, he told Vittorio that he would decide the next
+morning, and he appointed ten o'clock as the time when Vittorio was to
+call to get the decision. Mr. George and Rollo then went back to the
+hotel.
+
+"Why did not you engage him at once?" asked Rollo, as they walked along.
+"It was such a good carriage!"
+
+"Because I want first to see what terms and conditions I can make with
+Mrs. Gray," replied Mr. George.
+
+"Why?" asked Rollo; "don't you think she will be willing to pay her
+share?"
+
+"O, yes," said Mr. George. "She says she is willing to pay the whole, if
+I will only let her go with us."
+
+"And shall you let her pay the whole?" asked Rollo.
+
+"No, indeed," replied Mr. George. "I shall let her pay her share, which
+will be just two thirds, for she has four in her party, and we are two."
+
+"And so her portion will be four sixths," said Rollo, "and that is the
+same as two thirds."
+
+"Exactly," said Mr. George.
+
+"So then it is all settled," said Rollo.
+
+"About the money it is," replied Mr. George; "but that was not what I
+referred to. When two parties form a plan for travelling together in the
+same carriage for many days, it is necessary to have a very precise
+understanding beforehand about every thing, or else in the end they are
+very sure to quarrel."
+
+"To quarrel!" repeated Rollo.
+
+"Yes," said Mr. George; "and generally the more intimate their
+friendship for each other is before they set out, the more sure they are
+to quarrel in the end."
+
+"That's curious," said Rollo.
+
+"They begin by being very polite to each other," continued Mr. George;
+"but by and by, a thousand questions begin to come up, and there is
+nobody to decide them. For a time each one professes a great readiness
+to yield to the other; but before long each begins to think that the
+other assumes too much of the direction. Mrs. A. thinks that Mrs. B.
+keeps the carriage too much shut up, or that she always manages to have
+the best seat; and Mrs. B. thinks that Mrs. A. takes the best room too
+often at the hotels; or that she is never ready at the proper time; or
+that she always manages to have what she likes at the hotels, without
+paying enough regard to the wishes of the rest of the party."
+
+"Is that the way they act?" asked Rollo.
+
+"Yes," said Mr. George; "that is the way exactly. I have heard the
+secret history of a great many travelling parties that began very
+brightly, but ended in heart-burnings, miffs, and all sorts of troubles.
+The only way to prevent this is to have a very definite and precise
+understanding on all these points before we set out. And that is what I
+am going to have with Mrs. Gray."
+
+"And suppose she won't come to any agreement," said Rollo. "She'll say,
+'La, it's no matter. We shall not quarrel.'"
+
+"Then I won't go with her," said Mr. George.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CONTRACTS AND AGREEMENTS.
+
+
+In arranging for a journey in Italy with a vetturino, there are three
+separate classes of expenditure to be provided for. First, the carriage
+and horses; secondly, the board at the hotels by the way; and thirdly,
+the _buono manos_.
+
+As to the carriage and horses, the question, in the case of Mr. George's
+party, was soon settled. Vittorio said that his regular price was three
+napoleons a day for a full party. This is about twelve dollars, and
+includes the keeping of the horses, and all the tolls, tariffs, and way
+expenses of every kind. Mr. George had ascertained that this was about
+the usual price, and he did not ask Vittorio to take any less.
+
+For the board of the party by the way, Vittorio said that they could
+themselves call for what they wanted at the hotels, and pay their own
+bills, or _he_ would provide for them all the way, on their paying him a
+certain sum per day for each person. This last is the usual plan adopted
+when travelling in Italy, for the hotel keepers are very apt to charge
+too much when the travellers call for and pay the bills themselves.
+Whereas, when the vetturino pays, the hotel keepers are much more
+reasonable. They are aware that the vetturino knows what the charges
+ought to be, and they are afraid, if they overcharge him for his party,
+that then he will take his next party to some other hotel.
+
+"And what shall you give us," asked Mr. George, in talking with Vittorio
+on this subject, "if you provide for us?"
+
+"In the morning," replied Vittorio, "before we set out, there will be
+coffee or tea, and bread and butter, with eggs. Then, when we stop at
+noon, you will have a second breakfast of mutton chops, fried potatoes,
+fried fish, omelets, and other such things. Then, at night, when the
+day's journey is done, you will have dinner."
+
+"Very well," said Mr. George. "I should think that that might do. And
+how much must we pay you?"
+
+"It used to be eight francs a day," said Vittorio; "but the price of
+every thing is raised, and now we cannot do it well for less than nine
+francs. I will do it for nine francs apiece all round."
+
+"But there are two boys," said Mr. George. "Don't you charge any thing
+extra for boys?"
+
+"No, sir," said Vittorio, smiling. He thought at first that Mr. George
+was going to ask for some abatement on account of a portion of the party
+being young. "No, sir; we don't charge any thing extra for them."
+
+"You _would_ charge extra for them, I think," said Mr. George, "if you
+only knew how much they can eat."
+
+Vittorio smiled and said that if the party would pay nine francs apiece
+all round, he should be satisfied, without asking for any thing extra on
+account of the boys.
+
+The third item of expense in an Italian journey consists of the _buono
+manos_. In Italy, and indeed generally in Europe, though especially in
+Italy, nobody, in rendering you a service, is satisfied with receiving
+merely what you agreed to pay for the service. Every one expects
+something over at the end, as a token of your satisfaction with him. If
+you employ a guide in a town to show you about to the places and things
+that are curious there, under an agreement that he is to have a dollar a
+day, he is not satisfied at night if you pay him merely a dollar. He
+expects twenty cents or a quarter of a dollar over, as a _buono mano_,
+as it is called. This is the understanding on which the bargain is made.
+
+In the same manner, when you pay your bill at the hotel, the waiter
+expects you to give him a _buono mano_. If any body renders the
+vetturino a service along the road, it is the vetturino who pays them,
+because it is in the agreement that he is to pay the way expenses; but
+then, after getting their pay from him, and also his _buono mano_, they
+generally come to the carriage and ask for another _buono mano_ from the
+party of travellers. Some travellers get vexed and out of patience with
+this system, and always give, if they give at all, with scowling looks
+and moody mutterings. Others, seeing how poor all the people are, and
+how hard it is for them to get their living, are very willing to pay,
+especially as it is generally only a few cents in each case that is
+required. Still, unless the traveller understands the system, and
+prepares himself beforehand with a stock of small change, the _buono
+mano_ business gives him a good deal of trouble. If he does so provide
+himself, and if he falls into the custom good naturedly, as one of the
+established usages of the country, which is moreover not without its
+advantages, it becomes a source of pleasure to him to pay the poor
+fellows their expected fees.
+
+"Rollo," said Mr. George, "I am going to put the whole business of the
+_buono manos_ into your hands."
+
+"Good!" said Rollo. "I'll take the business if you will only give me the
+money."
+
+"How much will it require, Vittorio, for each day, to do the thing up
+handsomely?" asked Mr. George.
+
+Vittorio immediately began to make a calculation. He reckoned in
+_pauls_, the money which is used most in the central parts of Italy. The
+substance of his calculation was, that for the whole party about half a
+dollar would be a proper sum to pay to the domestic at the hotel where
+they stopped for the night, and a quarter of a dollar or less at noon.
+Then there were chambermaids, ostlers, and drivers of extra horses or
+oxen to help up the long hills, all of whom would like a small _buono
+mano_. This would bring the amount up to about six francs, or a dollar
+and a quarter a day, on the plan of doing the thing up handsomely, as
+Mr. George had proposed.
+
+"You mean to be generous with them, uncle George," said Rollo.
+
+"Yes," said Mr. George. "In travelling in Italy, pay out liberally to
+every body that renders you any service, but not a sou to beggars.
+That's my rule."
+
+"Besides," he continued, "it is good policy for us to be generous in
+this case, for Mrs. Gray will pay two thirds of the money. So that you
+and I, sitting in the coop, as you call it, will have all the pleasure
+of the generosity, with only one third of the expense of it."
+
+While Mr. George was saying this, he took his wallet out of his pocket,
+and opened to the compartment of it which contained napoleons.
+
+"Let us see," said he; "we shall be ten days on the way in going to
+Naples, and Sunday makes eleven. Six francs a day for eleven days makes
+sixty-six francs."
+
+So saying, he took out three gold napoleons, for the sixty francs, and
+six francs in silver, and handing the whole to Rollo, said, "There's the
+money."
+
+"But, uncle George," said Rollo, "I can't pay the _buono manos_ in
+gold."
+
+"No," said Mr. George; "you must get the money changed, of course."
+
+"And what shall I get it changed into?" asked Rollo.
+
+"I don't know, I'm sure," said Mr. George. "That's for you to find out.
+We have three different kinds of currency between here and Naples. We
+are now in Tuscany. After we get through Tuscany we come into the Roman
+states, and after we get through the Roman states we shall come into the
+kingdom of the two Sicilies, where Naples is. You will require
+different money in all these countries, and you must look out and not
+have any left over, or at least very little, when you cross the
+frontiers."
+
+"But how shall I manage that?" asked Rollo.
+
+"_I_ don't know," said Mr. George, "any more than you do. If I had it to
+do, I should try to find out. But that is your affair, not mine. You
+said that if I would give you the money you would take the whole
+business of the _buono manos_ off my hands. I must go now and see about
+my arrangement with Mrs. Gray."
+
+"Well," said Rollo, "I'll find out what to do."
+
+Thus the _buono mano_ question was disposed of.
+
+As to the board, Mr. George made a verbal agreement with Vittorio that
+he would pay fifty-four francs a day for the whole party, and that, in
+consideration of that sum, Vittorio was to provide board and lodging for
+them all, at the best hotels, and in the best style. He paid for five
+days in advance. At the end of that time, the party were to be at
+liberty either to continue the system at the same rate, or to abandon
+it, and pay the bills at the hotels themselves.
+
+In respect to the carriage and horses, Vittorio brought him an
+agreement, filled up from a printed form, which he and Vittorio signed
+in duplicate. It was as follows. There was a picture of a carriage and
+horses at the head of it. I give you the document in the original
+French. If you are studying French yourself, you can read it. If not,
+you must ask some one to translate it for you, if you wish to know what
+it all means.
+
+VITTORIO GONSALVI, VOITURIER.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FLORENCE, le 22 Mars, 1857.
+
+     Par la presente ecriture, faite a double original, pour valoir et
+     pour etre strictement observee, comme de droit, par les parties
+     contractantes, a ete fixe, et convenu ce qui suit.
+
+     Le proprietaire de voiture, Gonsalvi, domicilie a Rome, promet et
+     s'oblige de servir Monsieur George Holiday et sa suite dans le
+     voyage qu'il veut entreprendre de Florence a Napoli, par la voie de
+     Arezzo, Perugia, Rome, et Terracina, et etre conduit par un bon
+     voiturier, pour le prix convenu de trois cents francs, pour la
+     voiture et les quatre chevaux.
+
+     Moyennant ce paiement, qui s'effectuera moitie avant de partir,
+     moitie a Napoli, le proprietaire de voiture, ou son conducteur
+     delegue, est tenu des obligations ci-apres designees.
+
+     Tous les frais occasionnes pour le passage des fleuves, rivieres,
+     ponts, et montagnes, ainsi que ceux des barrieres, seront a la
+     charge du voiturier conducteur.
+
+     L'etrenne d'usage a donner au voiturier conducteur sera selon son
+     bon service.
+
+     Le dit voyage sera fait dans dix jours complets.
+
+     Le depart de Florence est fixe dans le journee du 23 courant, a
+     onze heures matin.
+
+     Pour tous les jours en sus, qu'il plairait a dit Monsieur Holiday
+     de s'arreter dans une ville, ou qu'il y fut force par des
+     imprevues, il est convenu qu'il payera cinq francs par jour par
+     cheval pour la nourriture des chevaux.
+
+     Le voiturier devra constamment descendre dans de bonnes auberges,
+     et partira tous les matins de bonne heure, pour arriver tous les
+     soirs avant la nuit a l'auberge ou l'on devra coucher.
+
+     Et pour l'observance des conditions ci-dessus mentionnees, les
+     parties interessees l'ont volontairement signee.
+
+               GEORGE HOLIDAY,
+               VITTORIO GONSALVI.
+
+The agreement which Mr. George made with Mrs. Gray was not so difficult
+to understand. Mrs. Gray did not, as Rollo had predicted, appear
+unwilling to make a definite arrangement in respect to the respective
+privileges and rights of the various members of the party in the
+carriage and at the hotels. She was a very sensible woman, and she saw
+the propriety of Mr. George's suggestion at once. Mr. George attributed
+the necessity of it, in part, to there being so many children in the
+party.
+
+"When there are children," said he, "we must have system and a routine."
+
+"That is very true," said Mrs. Gray.
+
+"And the more formal and precise the arrangement is, the better," said
+Mr. George. "It amuses them, and occupies their minds, to watch the
+operation of it."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Gray; "I have no doubt of it."
+
+"Then," said Mr. George, "I will draw up some articles of agreement,
+and if you approve of them, Rosie shall make a copy of them. Rosie shall
+keep the copy, too, after she has made it, and shall see that the rules
+are all observed."
+
+"But what shall I do," said Rosie, "if any body breaks any of the
+rules?"
+
+"Then they must be punished," said Mr. George. "You shall determine what
+the punishment shall be, and I will see that it is inflicted."
+
+So Mr. George drew up a set of rules; but before proposing them to Mrs.
+Gray and her children, he read them to Rollo. He read as follows:--
+
+     I.
+
+     The interior of the carriage, all the way, shall belong to Mrs.
+     Gray and her family, and the _coupe_ to Mr. George and Rollo. Mr.
+     George or Rollo may, perhaps, sometimes ride inside; but if they do
+     so, it is to be understood that they ride there as the guests of
+     Mrs. Gray; and in the same manner, if at any time any of Mrs.
+     Gray's party ride outside, it will be as the guests of Mr. George
+     and Rollo.
+
+"Good!" said Rollo. "I like that regulation very much. I shall not want
+to get inside very often."
+
+"You may sometimes wish to invite Rosie to take your place outside,
+when it is very pleasant, and you take her place inside," suggested Mr.
+George.
+
+"No," said Rollo; "there will be room outside for her and me too. She
+can sit right between you and me."
+
+"And, perhaps, sometimes I may invite Rosie and her brother to come
+outside and ride with you, while I go inside with Mrs. Gray," added Mr.
+George.
+
+"_That_ will be a good plan," said Rollo. "But now what is the second
+rule?"
+
+     II.
+
+     On arriving at a hotel for the night, Mrs. Gray is to take her
+     choice first of all the rooms shown, for herself and Rosie. Then
+     from the other rooms Mr. George is to choose the bed that he will
+     sleep in. Then the two boys are to choose from the beds that are
+     left, each to have the first choice alternately, beginning with
+     Josie.
+
+"Why should Josie begin?" asked Rollo. "I am the oldest."
+
+"True," said Mr. George; "but it is of no consequence at all which
+begins, and as _we_ are drawing up the rules, it is polite and proper to
+give Josie the precedence in such a point."
+
+"Very well," said Rollo; "go on. How about Susannah?"
+
+"O, it is not necessary to make any rule about Susannah," replied Mr.
+George. "I suppose that Mrs. Gray will take her into her room, if there
+is a spare bed there. If not, they must make some other arrangement for
+her."
+
+     III.
+
+     Every evening before the party separate for the night, Mrs. Gray
+     shall decide at what hour we shall set off the next morning, and
+     also at what hour we shall breakfast, after first hearing what
+     Vittorio's opinion is as to the best time for setting out.
+
+"Why can't we have a fixed time for setting out every day?" asked Rollo,
+"and agree about it once for all beforehand."
+
+"Because we have different distances to go on different days," said Mr.
+George, "so that sometimes we shall have to set out much earlier than
+will be necessary at other times."
+
+"Then why should not we consult together as to the time?" asked Rollo.
+"I don't see any reason for leaving it altogether to _one_ of the
+party."
+
+"Why, you see that Mrs. Gray is a lady," replied Mr. George, "and it
+takes a lady longer to dress and get ready than men. Besides, she has
+two children to look after."
+
+"And Susannah to help her," said Rollo.
+
+"True," said Mr. George; "still it seems proper that the time for
+setting out should be fixed by the lady,--of course, after hearing what
+the vetturino has to say."
+
+"I think so too," said Rollo; "so go on."
+
+     IV.
+
+     Any person who is not ready to sit down to breakfast at the time
+     which shall have been appointed by Mrs. Gray the evening before, or
+     who shall not be ready to enter the carriage at the time appointed,
+     shall pay a fine, except in the case hereinafter provided for. If
+     the person so behindhand is one of the children, the fine shall be
+     two cents, or the value thereof in the currency of the country
+     where we may chance to be; and if it is one of the grown persons,
+     the fine shall be three times that amount, that is, six cents.
+
+"Yes; but suppose we don't wake up?" suggested Rollo.
+
+"That contingency is provided for in the next article," said Mr. George.
+
+     V.
+
+     It shall be Mr. George's duty to knock at all the bedroom doors
+     every morning, three quarters of an hour before the time fixed for
+     breakfast; and if he fails to do so, then he shall pay all the
+     fines for tardiness that may be incurred that morning by any of the
+     party.
+
+"Very good!" said Rollo.
+
+     VI.
+
+     It shall be Rosie's duty to decide whether or not any persons are
+     tardy any morning; and her mother's watch shall be the standard of
+     time. Her decisions shall be without appeal; and no excuses
+     whatever shall be heard, nor shall there be any release from the
+     fine, except in the case of a failure of Mr. George to knock at the
+     doors, as hereinbefore provided.
+
+"But we might some of us have a good excuse some time," said Rollo.
+
+"True," said Mr. George; "we doubtless shall. But if we go upon the plan
+of admitting excuses, then there will be a long debate every morning, on
+the question whether the excuses are good or not, which will cause a
+great deal of trouble. It is better for us to pay the fine at once. It
+is not much, you know."
+
+"Well," said Rollo, "go on."
+
+     VII.
+
+     Josie is hereby appointed treasurer, to collect and keep the fines.
+
+"And what is to be done with the money?" asked Rollo.
+
+"You will see," said Mr. George.
+
+     VIII.
+
+     Any one of the party who shall at any time make complaint of any
+     thing in respect to the carriage, or the riding during the day, or
+     in respect to the food provided at the hotels, or the rooms, or the
+     beds, when we stop for the night, except when such complaint
+     relates to an evil which may be remedied, and is made with a view
+     to having it remedied, shall be fined one cent, or the value
+     thereof in the currency of the country. Rosie is to be the sole
+     judge of the infractions of this rule, and is to impose the fine,
+     while Josie, as before, is to collect and keep the money.
+
+"I wish you would make me the treasurer," said Rollo.
+
+"No," said Mr. George; "you have the care of the _buono mano_ fund.
+Josie shall be treasurer for the fines."
+
+"Very well," said Rollo.
+
+     IX.
+
+     On the arrival of the party at Naples, the amount of the fine money
+     shall be expended in the famous Neapolitan confectionery, and shall
+     be divided equally among the three children.
+
+"Good!" said Rollo. "But, uncle George, I don't think you ought to call
+us _children_ exactly. We are almost all of us twelve or thirteen."
+
+"True," said Mr. George, "you are not children; but what can I call you
+to distinguish you from the grown persons of the party. The regular and
+proper designation for persons under age, in a legal document, is
+_infants_."
+
+"Hoh!" said Rollo, "that is worse than _children_."
+
+"I might call you the young persons, or the junior members of the
+party."
+
+"Yes," said Rollo, "that will be better; the junior members of the
+party."
+
+So it was agreed to strike out the word _children_ wherever it occurred
+in the document, and insert in lieu of it the phrase _junior members of
+the party_.
+
+With this correction the document was read to Mrs. Gray in the hearing
+of Rosie and Josie. They all approved it in every respect. The draught
+was then given to Rosie in order that she might make a fair copy of it.
+When the copy was made, the nine rules were read again in the hearing of
+the whole party, and all agreed to abide by them.
+
+Thus the arrangements for the journey were complete; and Mrs. Gray,
+after learning from Vittorio that the first day's journey would not be
+long, and that it would answer to set out at any time before noon, fixed
+the hour for departure at eleven o'clock. Vittorio said he would be at
+the door half an hour before, in order to have time to load the baggage.
+
+[Illustration: READING THE ARTICLES.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE JOURNEY.
+
+
+The journey from Florence to Naples, as planned and provided for by the
+contracts and agreements described in the last chapter, was prosecuted
+from day to day, until its completion, in a very successful and
+prosperous manner. The various contingencies likely to occur having been
+foreseen and provided for by the contract and the rules, every thing
+worked smoothly and well, and none of those discussions, disagreements,
+and misunderstandings occurred, which so often mar the pleasure of
+parties travelling together in one company for many days.
+
+Mrs. Gray was fined for not being ready for breakfast at the time
+appointed, on the very first morning after leaving Florence. It was at a
+place called Arezzo. The time appointed for the breakfast was at seven
+o'clock. Mr. George knocked at all the doors a little before quarter
+past six. About quarter before seven the two boys came into the
+breakfast room, and soon afterwards Mr. George and Rosie came. The
+breakfast was brought in and set upon the table by the waiter a few
+minutes before seven. The boys immediately began to set the chairs
+round.
+
+"Quick! quick!" said Josie. "Let us sit down quick, and mother will be
+tardy, and have to pay a fine."
+
+"Ah, but it does not go by our sitting down," said Rollo. "It goes by
+Mrs. Gray's watch."
+
+"Yes," said Rosie; "I have got the watch. It wants a minute of the time
+now."
+
+"I _hope_ she won't come," said Josie.
+
+"She will come," said Rosie. "She has been almost ready for some time."
+
+The children all took their seats at the table. Rosie had the watch
+before her, and was closely observing the minute hand. Mr. George, who
+thought it not polite that he should take his seat before Mrs. Gray
+came, stood waiting by the fire. It was a cool morning, and so Mr.
+George had made a little fire when he first got up.
+
+Notwithstanding Rosie's prediction, Mrs. Gray did not come. Rosie
+watched the second hand, and as soon as it passed the mark she said,--
+
+"There! it is seven o'clock; now mother is tardy."
+
+Josie clapped his hands, and even Rollo looked quite pleased. In about
+two minutes the door of Mrs. Gray's bedroom opened, and Mrs. Gray
+appeared.
+
+"You are too late, mother!" said Josie, in an exulting tone. "You are
+too late!"
+
+"It does not depend on you to decide," said Mrs. Gray; "it depends upon
+Rosie."
+
+"Well, mother, you are really too late," said Rosie. "You are two
+minutes beyond the time, or a minute and a half, at the very least, when
+you opened the door. So you must pay the fine."
+
+"Yes; and you must pay it to me," said Josie. "I am the treasurer."
+
+"But you have not heard my excuse yet," said Mrs. Gray. "You don't know
+but that I have got a good excuse."
+
+"Ah, that makes no difference, mother," said Josie. "Excuses go for
+nothing."
+
+"Indeed!" said Mrs. Gray. "Is that the agreement? Let us see, Rosie."
+
+So Rosie took the paper out of her pocket, and with Josie's
+assistance,--who looked over very eagerly all the time,--she found the
+passage, and Josie read as follows, speaking the words in a very
+distinct and emphatic manner:--
+
+"'No excuses shall be heard, nor shall there be any release from the
+fine, except,' and so forth, and so forth. So you see, mother, you can't
+be excused."
+
+"I see," said Mrs. Gray. "The language is very plain indeed; so I'll pay
+the fine. I pay it very willingly. It would be very dishonorable in any
+of us, after having deliberately adopted the rules, to manifest any
+unwillingness to abide by them."
+
+So Mrs. Gray took out of her pocket a small silver coin called a paul,
+which Mr. George said was a good deal more than six cents, but which she
+said was near enough to the amount of the fine, and paid it into Josie's
+hands. Josie put it safely into a certain compartment of his wallet,
+which he had set apart for the purpose.
+
+The truth was, that Mrs. Gray contrived to be tardy that morning on
+purpose, in order to set an example of exact and cheerful submission to
+the law, and to give a practical illustration, in her own case, of the
+strictness with which, when once enacted, such laws ought to be
+enforced. She knew very well that if she had once submitted to be fined,
+when she was only a minute and a half behind the time, and also to be
+refused a hearing for her excuse, nobody could afterwards expect any
+indulgence. The effect produced was just what she had intended, and the
+whole party were extremely punctual all the way. There were only a few
+fines assessed, and they were all paid at once, without any objection.
+
+The road lay for a day through a small country called Tuscany. The
+scenery was very beautiful. Although it was so early in the spring, the
+wheat fields were every where very green, and in the hedges, and along
+the banks by the road side, multitudes of flowers were blooming. For a
+considerable portion of the way, where our travellers passed, the
+occupation of the inhabitants was that of braiding straw for bonnets;
+and here every body seemed to be braiding. In the streets of the
+villages, at the doors of the houses, and all along the roads every
+where, men, women, and children were to be seen standing in little
+groups, or walking about together in the sun, braiding the straw with a
+rapid motion, like that of knitting. They had a little bundle of
+prepared straw, at their side, and the braid which they had made hung
+rolled up in a coil before them. They looked contented and happy at
+their work, so that the scene was a very pleasing, as well as a very
+curious one to see.
+
+After leaving the frontiers of Tuscany, the party entered the Papal
+States--a country occupying the centre of Italy, with Rome for the
+capital of it. The Papal States are so called because they are under the
+dominion of the pope. Of course the Catholic religion reigns here in
+absolute supremacy.
+
+While passing through this country, the children, or rather, as Rollo
+would wish to have it expressed, the young people of the party, were
+very much interested in observing the crosses which were put up here and
+there by the road side, with the various emblems and symbols connected
+with our Saviour's death affixed to them. The first time that one of
+these crosses attracted their attention, Rosie was riding in the _coupe_
+with Mr. George and Rollo. There was room enough for her to sit very
+comfortably between them.
+
+"See!" said Rosie; "see! Look at that cross, with all those images and
+figures upon it!"
+
+The cross was pretty large, and was made of wood. It was set up by the
+road side, like a sign post in America. From the middle of the post out
+to the left hand end of the arm of the cross, there was a spear fixed.
+This spear, of course, represented the weapon of the Roman soldier, by
+which the body of Jesus was pierced in the side. From the same part of
+the post out to the end of the opposite arm of the cross was a pole with
+two sponges at the end of it, which represented the sponges with which
+the soldiers reached the vinegar up for Jesus to drink. Then all along
+the cross bar were various other emblems, such as the nails, the hammer,
+a pair of pincers, a little ladder, a great key, and on the top a cock,
+to represent the cock which crowed at the time of Peter's betrayal of
+his Lord.
+
+[Illustration: EMBLEMS ON THE CROSS.]
+
+Rollo and Rosie both looked at these things very eagerly, as the
+carriage drove by. Rosie seemed somewhat shocked at the sight.
+
+"How curious that is!" said Rollo.
+
+"I suppose it is all idolatry," said Rosie, speaking very seriously.
+
+"No," said Mr. George, "it is not necessarily idolatry. These kind of
+contrivances originated in the middle ages, when the poor people who
+lived in all these countries were very ignorant, as indeed they are
+now; and inasmuch as they could not read, and there were no schools in
+which to teach them, they had to be instructed by such contrivances as
+these."
+
+"They are very poor contrivances, I think," said Rollo.
+
+"They would be very poor as a substitute for Sunday schools, and other
+such advantages as the children enjoy in America," said Mr. George; "but
+not very poor, after all, for the people for whom they were intended. Go
+back in imagination five hundred years, and conceive of a little child,
+born in one of these peasants' huts. His father and mother probably have
+never even seen a book, and are not capable of understanding any thing
+that is not perfectly simple and plain. The child, walking along the
+road side, sees this cross. He stops to look up at it, and wonders what
+all those little objects fastened upon it mean. After a while, when he
+grows a little older, he asks his mother, when she is coming by with him
+some day, what they mean. Now, she would not have been able, of herself,
+and without any aid, to give the child any regular instruction whatever,
+but she can explain to him about the cross, and the various emblems that
+are upon it."
+
+"Yes," said Rosie; "I should think she could do that."
+
+"The child," continued Mr. George, "in looking upon the cross, and
+seeing all those curious objects upon it, would ask his mother what they
+mean. Then his mother would tell him about the crucifixion of Christ.
+'They nailed him to the cross,' she would say, 'by long nails passing
+through his hands and feet. Don't you see the nails?' And the child
+would say, 'Yes,' and look at the nails very intently. 'The soldiers
+climbed up by a ladder,' she would say. 'Don't you see the ladder? And
+by and by, when in his fever he called for some drink, they reached
+something up to him by a sponge fastened to the end of a long pole. Do
+you see the pole?' The child would look at all these things, and would
+get a much more clear and vivid idea of the transaction than it would be
+possible for so ignorant a mother to communicate to it in any other
+way."
+
+"Yes," said Rosie; "I think she would."
+
+"Thus you see," continued Mr. George, "there is a right and proper use
+of such contrivances as these, as well as a wrong and an idolatrous one.
+Unfortunately, however, pretty much all of them, though perhaps
+originally well intended, have degenerated, in Catholic countries, into
+superstition and idolatry."
+
+The scenery of the country through which the journey lay was enchanting.
+The ground was every where cultivated like a garden. There were wheat
+fields, and vineyards, and olive orchards, and rows of mulberry trees
+for the silk worms, and gardens of vegetables of every kind. Here and
+there groups of peasants were to be seen at work, men and women
+together, some digging fresh fields, some ploughing, some planting, and
+some pruning the trees or the vines. In many places the vines were
+trained upon the trees, so that in riding along the road you seemed to
+see an immense orchard on each side of you, with a carpet of rich
+verdure below, and a monstrous serpent climbing up into every tree, from
+the grass beneath it.
+
+[Illustration: ASCENDING THE MOUNTAINS.]
+
+The scenery was very much varied, too; and the changes were on so grand
+a scale that they made the views which were presented on every side
+appear extremely imposing. Sometimes the road lay across a wide plain,
+many miles in extent, but extremely fertile and luxuriant, and bounded
+in the distance by blue and beautiful mountains. After travelling upon
+one of these plains for many hours, the road would gradually approach
+the mountains, and then at length would enter among them, and begin to
+wind, by zigzags, up a broad slope, or into a dark ravine. At such
+places Vittorio would stop, usually at a post house at the foot of the
+ascent, and take an additional horse, or pair of horses, and
+sometimes a yoke of oxen, to help his team draw the carriage up the
+hill. Many of these ascents were four or live miles long, and as the
+road turned upon itself in continual zigzags, there was presented to Mr.
+George and Rollo, and also to Mrs. Gray's party within the carriage, as
+they ascended, a perpetual succession of widely-extended views over the
+vast plain below, with the road which they had traversed stretching
+across it in a straight line for ten or fifteen miles, like a white
+ribbon.
+
+Sometimes Mr. George and the two boys descended from the carriage, and
+walked for a while, in going up these hills; but generally they remained
+in their seats and rode. Indeed the men who came with the extra horses
+or oxen often rode themselves. When oxen were employed, the man used to
+ride, sometimes sitting on the yoke between them, and facing backward,
+so that he could watch them and see how they performed their work. He
+kept them up to their work by means of a small whip, which he had in his
+hand.
+
+After reaching the top of the ascent, Vittorio would stop, and the man
+would detach his oxen from the team. Vittorio would pay him for his
+services, and then the man would come and hold out his hat to Mr.
+George and Rollo for a _buono mano_ from them. Rollo always had it
+ready.
+
+The party stopped every day at noon for breakfast, as Vittorio called
+it. The coffee, and eggs, and bread and butter, which they had early in
+the morning, was not called _breakfast_; it was called simply _coffee_.
+The _breakfast_, which came about noon, consisted of fried fish,
+beefsteaks, or mutton chops, fried potatoes, all hot, and afterwards
+oranges and figs. With this there was always what they called wine set
+upon the table, which tasted like a weak mixture of sour cider and
+water. Every thing, except the wine, was very good.
+
+Mrs. Gray, however, always called this meal the dinner, and all the rest
+of the party were very willing to have it called so; and when they
+stopped at night, all that they required was tea and coffee, with bread
+and butter.
+
+The inns where the party stopped were very quaint and queer. They
+looked, Josie said, precisely as he had imagined the inns to look which
+he had read about in Don Quixote. The entrance was generally under an
+arched passage way, where the horses and carriage could go in. From this
+passage a flight of broad stone steps led up into the house. The lower
+floor was usually occupied for stables, sheds, and other such purposes,
+and the one above for kitchens and the like. Higher up came the good
+rooms.
+
+The apartment which was used by the party for their sitting and eating
+room was usually a large hall, with a brick or stone floor, and a
+vaulted ceiling above, painted in fresco. The walls of the room were
+usually painted too. There was generally a small and very coarse carpet
+under the table, and sometimes one before the fireplace. The doors were
+massive; and the locks and hinges upon them, and also the andirons and
+the shovel and tongs, were of the most ancient and curious construction.
+The first thing which the children did, on being ushered into one of
+these old halls, was to walk all about, and examine these various
+objects in detail. Rollo made drawings of a great many of them in his
+drawing book, to bring home and show to people in America.
+
+The bed rooms opened out from this great hall, on the different sides of
+it. There were generally, but not always, two beds in each. According to
+the agreement, Mrs. Gray had her first choice of these rooms. She chose
+one, if possible, which had one wide bed in it, and one narrow one. The
+wide one was for herself and Rosie; the narrow one was for Susannah.
+
+Mr. George came next in the order of choice, and he generally took a
+room which had only one bed in it, leaving another room with two single
+beds in it for the two boys. They always had a fire in the great hall
+every evening. Mrs. Gray usually went to her room with Rosie and
+Susannah at half past eight, leaving Mr. George and the two boys in the
+hall. The first evening of the journey--that is, the evening of the
+night spent at Arezzo--Mr. George told Rollo, as soon as Mrs. Gray had
+gone, that he had some bad news to tell him.
+
+"What is it?" asked Rollo.
+
+"It is that I am going to make a rule for you, that every night, from
+and after the time that Mrs. Gray goes into her room, you are not to
+have any conversation with any body."
+
+"Why not, uncle George?" asked Rollo.
+
+"Because I want to have the room still, so that I can write. I have
+journals and letters to write, and so have you,--and so I suppose has
+Josie; and the evening, after Mrs. Gray and Rosie have gone to their
+room, will be the best time to appropriate to the work. You can do your
+own work of this kind at that time or not, just as you please; but if
+you do not do it, you must not interrupt me in doing mine."
+
+"I suppose that is a rule for me and Josie too," said Rollo.
+
+"No," said Mr. George, "it is for you alone."
+
+"Why is it not a rule for Josie," said Rollo, "as much as for me?"
+
+"Because I have no authority to make any rules for Josie," replied Mr.
+George. "I have no authority over him at all, but only over you."
+
+"But, uncle George," said Rollo, "if you are busy writing, and I am not
+allowed to talk, and Mrs. Gray and Rosie have gone to bed, Josie will
+not have any body to talk to."
+
+"True," said Mr. George.
+
+"Then I don't see but that you might just as well make the rule for him
+too, at once," said Rollo. "You may just as well make a rule that he
+shall not talk himself, as to make one that cuts him off from having any
+body to talk to."
+
+"Only," replied Mr. George, "that to do the one comes within my
+authority, while to do the other does not."
+
+Here Rollo was silent a few minutes, and seemed to be musing on what Mr.
+George had said. Presently he added,--
+
+"Besides, uncle George, this is not put down among the rules and
+regulations for the journey which you drew up. We all agreed to abide by
+those rules, and this is not one of them."
+
+"True," said Mr. George. "But those rules and regulations are of force
+as a compact only between Mrs. Gray and me, as the heads respectively of
+the two divisions of the party. They are not at all of the nature of a
+compact between Mrs. Gray and her children, nor between you and me. Her
+authority over her children in respect to every thing not referred to in
+the compact, is left entirely untouched by them, and so is mine over
+you."
+
+"Well," said Rollo, drawing a long breath, "I have no objection at all
+to the rule. Indeed, I should like some time every evening to write and
+draw. I only wanted to see how you would defend your rule, in the
+argument."
+
+"And how do you think the argument stands?" asked Mr. George.
+
+"I think it stands pretty strong," said Rollo.
+
+Rollo further inquired of his uncle whether he and Josie could not talk
+in their own room; but Mr. George said no. If boys were allowed to talk
+together after they went to bed, he said, they were very apt to get into
+a frolic, and disturb those who slept in the adjoining rooms.
+
+"And besides," said Mr. George, "even if they do not get into a frolic,
+they sometimes go on talking to a later hour than they imagine, and the
+sound of their voices is heard like a constant murmuring through the
+partitions, and disturbs every body that is near. So you must do all
+your talking in the course of the day, and when eight o'clock comes, you
+must bring your discourse to a close. You may sit up as long as you
+please to read or write; but when you get tired of those employments,
+you must go to bed and go to sleep."
+
+The rule thus made was faithfully observed during the whole journey.
+
+It was Monday morning when the party left Florence, and on Saturday
+afternoon at three o'clock, the carriage drew up at the passport office
+just under the great gate called the _Porta del Popolo_, at Rome. The
+party spent the Sabbath at Rome, and on the Monday morning after they
+set out again. On the following Thursday they arrived at Naples, and
+there they all established themselves in very pleasant quarters at the
+Hotel de Rome--a hotel which, being built out over the water from the
+busiest part of the town, commands on every side charming views, both of
+the town and of the sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+SITUATION OF NAPLES.
+
+
+Naples is situated on a bay which has the reputation of being the most
+magnificent sheet of water in the world. It is bordered on every side by
+romantic cliffs and headlands, or by green and beautiful slopes of land,
+which are adorned with vineyards and groves of orange and lemon trees,
+and dotted with white villas; while all along the shore, close to the
+margin of the water, there extends an almost uninterrupted line of
+cities and towns round almost the whole circumference of the bay. The
+greatest of these cities is Naples.
+
+[Illustration: SITUATION OF NAPLES.]
+
+But the crowning glory of the scene is the great volcano Vesuvius, which
+rises a vast green cone from the midst of the plain, and emits from its
+summit a constant stream of smoke. In times of eruption this smoke
+becomes very dense and voluminous, and alternates from time to time with
+bursts of what seems to be flame, and with explosive ejections of
+red-hot stones or molten lava. Besides the cities and towns that are
+now to be seen along the shore at the foot of the slopes of the
+mountain, there are many others buried deep beneath the ground, having
+been overwhelmed by currents of lava from the volcano, or by showers of
+ashes and stones, in eruptions which took place ages ago.
+
+Of course there is every probability that there will be more eruptions
+in time to come, and that many of the present towns will also be
+overwhelmed and destroyed, as their predecessors have been. But these
+eruptions occur usually at such distant intervals from each other, that
+the people think it is not probable that the town in which they live
+will be destroyed in their day; and so they are quiet. Of course,
+however, whenever they hear a rumbling in the mountain behind them, or
+notice any other sign of an approaching convulsion, they naturally feel
+somewhat nervous until the danger passes by.
+
+Naples is built on the northern shore of the bay You will see by the map
+on the preceding page just what the situation of the town is, and where
+Vesuvius is in relation to it. Vesuvius, you observe, stands back a
+little from the sea, but the slope of land extends quite down to the
+margin of the water. You perceive, however, that there is a carriage
+road, and also a railroad, passing along the coast between the mountain
+and the sea.
+
+Besides the villages and towns laid down on the map, upon this coast,
+there are many little hamlets scattered along the way, so that, as seen
+across the water from Naples, there seems to be, as it were, a continued
+town, extending along the whole line of the shore.
+
+Among the places named on the map you see the sites of Herculaneum and
+Pompeii marked. Pompeii lies to the south-east from the mountain, and
+Herculaneum to the south-west. Of course the lava, in breaking out from
+the crater in different eruptions, runs down the mountain, sometimes on
+one side and sometimes on another. It is the same with the showers of
+stones and ashes, which are carried in different directions, according
+to the course of the wind.
+
+Very near the site of Herculaneum you see a small town laid down, named
+Resina. This is the place where people stop when about to make the
+ascent of Vesuvius, and leave the carriage in which they came from
+Naples. If they come by the railroad, they leave the train at the
+Portici station, which, also, you will see upon the map, and thence go
+to Resina by a carriage.
+
+At Resina they take another carriage, or sometimes go on in the same,
+until they get up to what is called the Hermitage, the place of which
+you also see marked on the map. The Hermitage is so called because the
+spot was once the residence of a monk who lived there alone in his cell.
+It is now, however, a sort of ruin.
+
+There is no carriage road at all beyond the Hermitage, and here,
+accordingly, the party of travellers take mules or donkeys, to go on
+some distance farther. At last they reach a part of the mountain which
+is so steep that even mules and donkeys cannot go; and here the people
+are accordingly obliged to dismount, and to climb up the last part of
+the ascent on foot, or else to be carried up in a chair, which is the
+mode usually adopted for ladies. You will see how Mr. George and Rollo
+managed, in the next chapter.
+
+The ruins of Herculaneum can be visited on the same day in which you
+make the ascent of Vesuvius; for, as you see by the map, they are very
+near the place, Resina, where the ascent of the mountain commences.
+Pompeii, however, is much farther on, and usually requires a separate
+day.
+
+Besides, it takes much longer to visit Pompeii than Herculaneum, on
+account of there being go much more to see there. The reason for this
+is, that the excavations have been carried on much farther at Pompeii
+than at Herculaneum. Herculaneum was buried up in lava, and the lava,
+when it cooled, became as hard as a stone; whereas Pompeii was only
+covered with ashes and cinders, which are very easily dug away.
+
+Besides, Herculaneum was buried very deep, so that, in order to get to
+it, you have to go far down under ground. The fact that there was an
+ancient city buried there was discovered about a hundred and fifty years
+ago, by a man digging a well in the ground above. In digging this well,
+the workmen came upon some statues and other remains of ancient art.
+They dug these things out, and afterwards the excavations were continued
+for many years; but the difficulties in the way were so great, on
+account of the depth below the surface of the ground where the work was
+to be done, and also on account of the hardness of the lava, that after
+a while it was abandoned. People, however, now go down sometimes through
+a shaft made near the well by which the first discovery was made, and
+ramble about, by the light of torches, which they carry with them, among
+the rubbish in the subterranean chambers.
+
+The site of Pompeii was discovered in the same way with Herculaneum,
+namely, by the digging of a well. Pompeii, however, as has already been
+said, was not buried nearly as deep as Herculaneum, and the substances
+which covered it were found to be much softer, and more easily removed.
+Consequently a great deal more has been done at Pompeii than at
+Herculaneum in making excavations. Nearly a third of the whole city has
+now been explored, and the work is still going on.
+
+The chief inducement for continuing to dig out these old ruins, is to
+recover the various pictures, sculptures, utensils, and other curious
+objects that are found in the houses. These things, as fast as they are
+found, are brought to Naples, and deposited in an immense museum, which
+has been built there to receive them.
+
+You will see in a future chapter how Rollo went to see this museum.
+
+Vesuvius, Herculaneum, and Pompeii are all to the eastward of Naples,
+following the shore of the bay. To the westward, at the distance of
+about a mile or two from the centre of the town, is a famous passage
+through a hill, like the tunnel of a railway, which is considered a
+great curiosity. This passage is called the Grotto of Posilipo. You will
+see its place marked upon the map. The wonder of this subterranean
+passage way is its great antiquity. It has existed at least eighteen
+hundred years, and how much longer nobody knows. It is wide enough for a
+good broad road. When it was first cut through, it was only high enough
+for a carriage to pass; but the floor of it has been cut down at
+different times, until now the tunnel is nearly seventy feet high at
+the ends, and about twenty-five in the middle. High up on the sides of
+it, at different distances, you can see the marks made by the hubs of
+the wheels, as they rubbed against the rocks, at the different levels of
+the road way, in ancient times.
+
+On passing through the grotto in a carriage, or on foot, the traveller
+comes out to an open country beyond, where he sees a magnificent
+prospect spread out before him. The road goes on along the coast, and
+comes to several very curious places, which will be described
+particularly in future chapters of this volume.
+
+On the afternoon of the day when Mr. George and his party arrived at the
+hotel, just before sundown, Rollo came into Mrs. Gray's parlor, where
+Mr. George and all the rest of the party, except Josie, were sitting,
+and asked them to go with him and see a place which he and Josie had
+found.
+
+"Where is it, and what is it?" asked Mrs. Gray.
+
+"You must come and see," said Rollo. "I would rather not tell you till
+you come and see."
+
+But Mrs. Gray, being somewhat fatigued with her ride, and being,
+moreover, very comfortably seated on a sofa, seemed not inclined to
+move.
+
+"Rosie may go instead," said Mrs. Gray, "and when she has seen it, she
+may come back and tell me, and if she thinks it is worth while I will
+go."
+
+"Well," said Rollo; "come, Rosie."
+
+So Rollo led the way, and Rosie followed out of the parlor into the
+hall, and from the hall along a sort of corridor which led to a narrow
+and winding stone stair.
+
+"No," said Rosie, as soon as she began to ascend the stair, "I don't
+think mother will like to come. She does not like to go up long stairs,
+especially stone stairs, and more especially still, stairs that wind
+round and round."
+
+"Wait and see," said Rollo.
+
+After going round and round several times,--all the while
+ascending,--Rollo came out to a sort of open passage way, paved with
+glazed tiles of a very pretty pattern, where there was a door leading
+out to a balcony. From this balcony there was a narrow iron stair which
+led up on the outside of the house to the roof. Rollo led the way up
+this stair, and Rosie followed him, though somewhat timidly. They landed
+at length on a sort of platform among the chimneys, from which another
+stair led up to another platform, higher still, where Josie was.
+
+"There!" said Rollo, as soon as he reached the first platform, "don't
+you think your mother would like to be here?"
+
+Rosie looked around, and saw that a magnificent panorama presented
+itself to her view.
+
+"She would like to _be_ here very much, if she only dared to come," said
+Rosie.
+
+On looking towards the east, Rosie could survey the whole shore of the
+bay in that direction, with the continuous line of towns and villages
+along the margin of the water, and the immense green slopes of Vesuvius
+rising beyond. Among the green fields and groves, far up these slopes,
+white hamlets and villas were scattered, and above, the double summit of
+Vesuvius was seen, with dense volumes of white smoke ascending from one
+of the peaks. The children, too, could look from where they stood far
+out over the bay, and see the ships and steamers in the offing, and
+great numbers of small boats plying to and fro nearer the shore.
+
+Rollo had an opera glass in his hand, which he used as a spy-glass. He
+let Rosie look through this glass at the mountain, so that she might see
+the smoke coming out more distinctly. With the glass, besides the
+general column of vapor, she could discern several places, near the
+summit, where small, separate puffs of smoke were issuing.
+
+Farther down the mountain, Rollo directed her attention to a white
+building, which was seen very distinctly in the rays of the setting
+sun. This building, he said, must be the Hermitage.
+
+"How do you know it is the Hermitage?" asked Rosie.
+
+[Illustration: VIEW THROUGH THE GLASS.]
+
+"I know by the situation of it," said Rollo. "Look through the glass and
+you will see that it is the highest house on the mountain side. Besides,
+it stands on the end of a ridge or spur, projecting from the mountain,
+just as I know the Hermitage does, with a deep valley on each side of
+it."
+
+"I should have thought that they would have built it in one of the
+valleys," said Rosie. "It would have been more sheltered then from the
+wind."
+
+"No," said Rollo. "That would not have been a good plan at all, for then
+it would have been in the track of the streams of lava. The lava comes
+down through the valleys."
+
+"I can see the zigzag road leading up to the Hermitage," said Rosie.
+
+"Yes," replied Rollo; "and I think it probable we could see people going
+up or coming down, if there were any there now."
+
+"I mean to watch," said Rosie.
+
+Rosie watched, but she did not see any thing moving. The truth was, that
+the people who had been up that day had all come down. They usually come
+down early in the afternoon. And yet parties sometimes make arrangements
+to stay up there until after dark, so as to see the glow of the fires
+that are continually smouldering in the chasms and crevices of the
+crater, and sometimes breaking out there.
+
+Mrs. Gray was so much pleased with Rosie's report of what she saw on the
+roof, that she went up herself immediately after Rosie came down. Mr.
+George went up too. As for Josie, he staid up there all the time.
+
+When Mrs. Gray and Mr. George reached the first platform, Josie called
+to them. "Mother," said he, "come up here!"
+
+"No," said Mrs. Gray; "this is high enough for me. I can see very well
+here."
+
+Mrs. Gray was very much interested in the view of the mountain, and of
+the column of smoke issuing from the summit. She had not seen the summit
+before, as all the upper part of the mountain had been enveloped in
+clouds during the time while they were approaching the town.
+
+She was also much pleased with the view of Naples itself, which she
+obtained from this platform. The hotel was built out over the water, so
+that from the lookout the town was spread out in full view, with all the
+great castles and towers which crowned the cliffs and headlands above,
+and the various moles, and piers, and fortresses, that extended out into
+the water below.
+
+In coming up the iron stair, on the outside of the building, Mrs. Gray
+had been a little afraid; but in coming down she found the steps so firm
+and solid under her tread that she said she should not be afraid at all
+a second time.
+
+"Then, mother," said Rosie, "let us come up here this evening after
+dark, and then on the top of the mountain, instead of smoke coming out,
+we shall see fire."
+
+"Shall we, Rollo?" asked Mrs. Gray.
+
+"I believe so," said Rollo. "At any rate they do sometimes see fire
+coming out; and I don't know why we should not to-night."
+
+It was finally agreed that after it became dark, Rollo and Josie should
+go up alone first, to see if there was any fire, and if there was, then
+Mrs. Gray and Rosie were to go up.
+
+Accordingly, about eight o'clock, Rollo and Josie went up. They very
+soon came running down again, and reported that there was quite a bright
+fire. So Mrs. Gray and Rosie went up. Taking their stations on the
+platform, and looking towards the mountain, they could see distinctly a
+bright glow playing over the summit, with brighter flashes beaming up
+from time to time. The sight impressed them all with an emotion of
+solemn awe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+PLANNING THE ASCENSION.
+
+
+Rollo was very impatient for the time to come for the ascent of
+Vesuvius; but several days elapsed before Mr. George was ready. Then,
+after that, for two or three days, the weather was not favorable. The
+sky was filled with showery-looking clouds, and great caps of fog hung
+over the summits of the mountains.
+
+"If we get up there when there are mists and fogs hanging about the
+mountain," said Mr. George, "we shall not be able to see the fire at
+all."
+
+"Then I would rather wait for a fair day," said Rollo.
+
+Rollo repeatedly asked Rosie if she was not going up.
+
+"I don't know," said Rosie; "it depends upon my mother. I shall not go
+unless she goes, and she says she has not decided."
+
+At last, after several days of uncertain weather, the wind came round to
+the westward, the clouds passed off, and the whole sky became serene.
+This was in the afternoon. Mr. George had been rambling with Rollo about
+the town that day; but when he found that the weather promised now to be
+good, he said he would go home and talk with Mrs. Gray about making the
+ascent. So he and Rollo returned to the hotel, and went up together to
+Mrs. Gray's room.
+
+Mr. George told Mrs. Gray that the weather promised to be favorable the
+next day for the ascent of the mountain.
+
+"And Rollo and I," said he, "think of going up. If you would like to go,
+we should be very happy to have you join our party."
+
+"_Can_ I go, do you think?" asked Mrs. Gray.
+
+"O, yes," said Mr. George; "you certainly can go, for you can be carried
+up in a _portantina_ from the place where we leave the carriage. But if
+you please, I will send for a commissioner, and he can tell us all about
+it."
+
+"Very well," said Mrs. Gray, "I should like to have you do that."
+
+"Ring the bell, then, Rollo," said Mr. George.
+
+So Rollo rang the bell; a servant man soon came in. He was what Rollo
+called the chamberman. His business was to make the beds and take care
+of the rooms. This work, in Italy, is done by men generally, instead of
+by women.
+
+"Is there a commissioner attached to this hotel," asked Mr. George,
+addressing the servant, and speaking in French, "who accompanies parties
+to Vesuvius?"
+
+"Yes, sir, certainly," said the servant.
+
+"What is his name?" asked Mr. George.
+
+"Philippe," replied the man.
+
+"Where is he?" asked Mr. George.
+
+"He is below," said the man.
+
+"Please ask him to come up," said Mr. George. "I want to talk with him
+about an excursion to the mountain."
+
+The servant man went down, and pretty soon Philippe appeared. He was a
+very intelligent looking young man, neatly dressed, and with a frank and
+agreeable countenance.
+
+"This is Philippe, I suppose," said Mr. George, speaking in French.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Philippe.
+
+"Take a seat," said Mr. George. "This lady wishes me to make some
+inquiries of you about going up the mountain. Do you speak English?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said Philippe, "a little."
+
+On hearing this Mr. George changed the conversation into the English
+language, so that Mrs. Gray might understand what was said, without the
+inconvenience and delay of having it interpreted.
+
+"In the first place," said Mr. George, "when ladies ascend the Mountain,
+how far do they go in a carriage?"
+
+"To the Hermitage," said Philippe.
+
+"Can you go in a good, comfortable carriage all the way to the
+Hermitage?" asked Mr. George.
+
+"O, yes, sir," said Philippe. "We take an excellent carriage from town.
+The road is very winding to go up the mountain, but it is perfectly
+good. A lady can go up there as comfortably as she can ride about town."
+
+Philippe further said that ladies often went up with parties as far as
+the Hermitage, and then, if they did not wish to go any farther, they
+remained there until their friends came down.
+
+"What sort of a place is the Hermitage?" asked Mrs. Gray. "Is it an
+inn?"
+
+"Yes, madam," said Philippe. "It is an inn. It is a very plain and
+homely place, but a lady can stay there very well a few hours."
+
+"Is there a family there?" asked Mrs. Gray.
+
+"No, madam," said Philippe; "it is kept by a monk."
+
+"Let us go, mother," said Josie. "We can go up _there_ as well as not."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Gray, "I think I should like to go up at least as far
+as there. I can take a book to read, to while away the time while you
+are up the mountain; or I can ramble about, I suppose. Is it a pleasant
+place to ramble about, around the Hermitage?"
+
+"Yes, madam; it is a _very_ pleasant place," replied Philippe. "You have
+an exceedingly fine view of the bay, and of Naples, and of the islands,
+and of the whole Campagna. Then the observatory is near, and that is a
+very pleasant place, with gardens and plantations of trees all around
+it. Perhaps the beggars might be a little troublesome if you walked out,
+but I think I could manage about that."
+
+"What _is_ the observatory that you speak of?" asked Mr. George.
+
+"It is a government establishment that is kept there for making
+observations on the state of the mountain," replied Philippe. "It is a
+fine building, and it has very pretty gardens and grounds around it."
+
+"I should think it would be a very pleasant place," said Mrs. Gray.
+"Indeed, it looks like a pleasant place seen from this hotel with
+Rollo's opera glass."
+
+"Well, now for the next stage of the journey," said Mr. George; "that
+is, from the Hermitage to the foot of the cone. How far is that, and how
+do we go?"
+
+"It is about three quarters of an hour's walk," replied Philippe. "There
+is no carriage road, but only a mule path, and in some places the road
+is very rough."
+
+"Is it steep?" asked Mr. George.
+
+"No, sir," said Philippe; "the steep part comes afterwards. The mule
+path is nearly on a level, but it is rough and rocky. There are three
+ways of going. You can walk, you can ride upon a mule or a donkey, or
+finally, you can be carried in a chair. Ladies that do not like to walk
+so far usually ride on a donkey, or else are carried. It is easier to be
+carried, but it costs a little more."
+
+"How much more?" asked Mr. George.
+
+"A dollar," said Philippe.
+
+"I think I should rather be carried if I were to go," said Mrs. Gray.
+
+"I'd rather ride on a donkey," said Rosie.
+
+"And I on a mule," said Josie.
+
+"You and I might walk, Rollo," said Mr. George.
+
+"Yes," said Rollo, "I would rather walk."
+
+Rollo always preferred to go on foot when on any of these mountain
+excursions, because then he could ramble about this way and that,
+wherever he pleased, and climb up upon the rocks, and gather plants and
+specimens.
+
+"Very well," said Mr. George; "and this brings us to the foot of the
+steep part of the mountain. How far is it up this last steep part?"
+
+"About an hour's work, hard climbing," said Philippe.
+
+"Is it very hard climbing?" asked Mr. George.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Philippe; "it is right up a steep slope of rocks."
+
+"Is there good footing," asked Mr. George, "or are the rocks loose, or
+slippery?"
+
+"It is very good footing," said Philippe. "In one sense the rocks are
+loose, for the whole side of the mountain where we go up is formed of
+slag and scoriae. But then the pieces are wedged together, so as not to
+move much, and the foot clings to them, so that you don't slip. On the
+whole, it is good footing. The only difficulty is, it is so steep. It is
+a thousand feet up rough rocks, as steep as you can go."
+
+"_I_ could not get up, I am sure," said Mrs. Gray.
+
+"Nor I," said Rosie.
+
+"O, you can be carried up," said Mr. George, "in a portantina."
+
+"What kind of a thing is it?" asked Mrs. Gray.
+
+"It is a common arm chair," said Philippe, "with two stout poles lashed
+to the sides of it. Two men take hold of the ends of the poles before,
+and two others behind, and they lift the poles,--chair, passenger, and
+all,--up upon their shoulders. They carry you, in this way, right up the
+mountain."
+
+"I should be afraid," said Rosie.
+
+"You would feel a little afraid at first," said Philippe, "when the men
+were lifting you up upon their shoulders--but afterwards, you would not
+be afraid at all. You ride as easy as if two persons were to take you in
+a chair and carry you about the room."
+
+"But I should pity the poor men so much," said Rosie, "in having such a
+heavy load to carry!"
+
+"Ah!" said Philippe, "instead of pitying them, you ought to rejoice for
+them. They are so glad when they get any body to carry up! They are paid
+about three quarters of a dollar apiece, and that is a great deal of
+money for them. There will be a great many of them up there to-morrow,
+waiting, and hoping that somebody will come for them to carry up."
+
+"Ah, that makes it different," said Rosie.
+
+"Besides," said Josie, "_you_ are nothing to carry, you are so little
+and light. Rollo and I could carry you. I suppose that they would carry
+Rosie for half price--would not they, Philippe?"
+
+Rosie looked a little troubled to hear her brother speak of her in this
+way. She did not like to be called little and light. Philippe saw that
+she was troubled.
+
+"No," said he; "they will ask the same for carrying Miss Rosie that they
+would for any other lady."
+
+This answer removed in an instant the cloud which had appeared upon
+Rosie's face, and replaced it with a smile which had something of the
+expression of triumph in it. In fact, Philippe shaped his answer as he
+did on purpose to please her. It was strange that a guide, whose life
+had been spent among the roughest of men, on the mountains, should know
+better how to be polite than a boy who had been brought up tenderly in
+the midst of refinement and elegance; but so it often is.
+
+"How long does it take to go up the steep part?" asked Mrs. Gray.
+
+"About an hour," said Philippe. "They stop two or three times on the
+way, to rest the bearers, and change them."
+
+"Then they change the bearers," said Mrs. Gray.
+
+"Yes, madam," replied Philippe. "We take eight bearers to each chair,
+and four of them carry it at a time; so we have two sets."
+
+"I'm glad of that," said Rosie.
+
+"And what do we see when we get to the top?" asked Mrs. Gray.
+
+"We walk along over the sand and lava," replied Philippe, "until we come
+to the edge of the crater, and then we look down."
+
+"And do we see the fire coming out?" asked Rollo.
+
+"Yes," said Philippe, "plenty of fire."
+
+"And lava, and red-hot stones?" asked Josie.
+
+"Yes," said Philippe, "all the time."
+
+"I hope you don't go too near," said Mrs. Gray.
+
+"No, madam," said Philippe; "we are careful not to go too near. There is
+a mountain guide who goes up with the party from the Hermitage, and it
+is his business to know all the time what the state of the mountain is,
+and where it is safe to go. There are two craters now. One of them they
+cannot go down into, for the sides have caved in all around, and formed
+perpendicular cliffs. But at the other crater there is on one side a
+slope of sand and slag, where people can go down, and walk over the lava
+on the floor of the crater."
+
+"Why, I should think they would sink into it," said Rosie.
+
+"No," said Philippe; "the lava that lies spread out over the bottom of
+the crater has cooled so as to be hard enough to walk upon, though you
+can see that it is red hot in the cracks."
+
+"I should not dare to walk over it," said Rosie.
+
+"Ladies go down very often," said Philippe, "and there is no danger,
+only the sulphurous smoke, if it happens to blow over upon you, is bad
+to breathe."
+
+After some further conversation with Philippe, and some consultation
+with each other, the party formed the plan as follows: They were all to
+go together in a carriage to the Hermitage. Then Philippe was to provide
+chairs and bearers for Mrs. Gray and Rosie, to take them to the foot of
+the cone, and animals, either mules or donkeys, for "the three
+gentlemen," as Philippe called them. On arriving at the foot of the
+cone, Mrs. Gray was to decide whether she would let Rosie continue and
+go to the top. For herself, she concluded that she would not go, but
+after seeing the party commence their ascent, she would go back to the
+Hermitage, and wait there till they returned.
+
+"And now, Philippe," said Mr. George, "I wish you to calculate exactly
+what the expense will be for the whole expedition, including carriage
+hire, guides, bearers, mules, _buono manos_, and every thing. Then I
+will give you money enough, before we set out, to pay the whole. I don't
+wish to have any thing to do in the way of paying, from the time we
+leave the hotel until we get back again."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Philippe; "that is the best way. If you undertake to
+pay the men on the mountain yourself, they will never be satisfied. They
+clamor continually for more, as long as the party will give any thing. I
+know just what is their due."
+
+So Philippe drew his chair up to the table where Mr. George had placed a
+sheet of paper and a pen and ink, and began to make out his account.
+After writing a few minutes, he looked up from his work, and asked if
+the gentlemen wished to have any assistance in going up the cone. "What
+assistance _can_ we have?" asked Mr. George.
+
+"There are men who put straps over their shoulders to pull by, and let
+you take hold of the end of them. It helps you a great deal."
+
+"Yes, uncle George," said Rollo, "let us have them. I should like to be
+pulled up in that way."
+
+"So should I," said Josie.
+
+"You boys may have strapmen, then," said Mr. George. "I think I can get
+along without one myself."
+
+Philippe then asked if the party would stop on the way and go down into
+Herculaneum. Mr. George said that they would. Philippe then went on with
+his calculation, and when it was finished he presented it to Mr. George.
+Mr. George wrote a heading to it, and then read it as follows, except
+that I give the amounts in American money:--
+
+ ASCENT OF VESUVIUS.
+
+ _Estimate of Expenses_--_Party of Five._
+
+ Carriage to the Hermitage,                      $5.00
+ Fees at Herculaneum,                              .25
+ Portantina to the foot of the cone for madame,   2.00
+ Portantina to the summit for mademoiselle,       6.00
+ Two mules for the young gentlemen,               2.00
+ Two strapmen up the cone,                        1.00
+ Refreshments,                                     .50
+ Mountain guide,                                  1.00
+ Buono manos,                                     1.00
+ Valet de place,                                  1.00
+                                                ______
+                                                $19.75
+
+"Very well," said Mr. George. "That is satisfactory. Now I will give you
+gold enough to cover that amount. You must get it changed into such a
+form as you want it, and you must not call upon me or any of the party
+for any money whatever, from the time that we set out till we get back
+again to the hotel."
+
+"Very well, sir," said Philippe; "that is much the best way. The men
+will gather around you from time to time on the way, and clamor for
+_buono manos_, but you must not pay any attention to them; say simply,
+'Philippe will pay.'"
+
+"And now," said Mr. George, "it is all arranged except the time for
+setting out. What is the best time?"
+
+"We ought to set out at eight or nine o'clock," said Philippe. "It takes
+about ten hours."
+
+"Let us set out at eight, then," said Mrs. Gray. "We can have breakfast
+at seven, I suppose."
+
+"Certainly," said Philippe. "And will you have it in your own room?"
+
+"No," said Mrs. Gray; "let us all breakfast together in the dining room.
+That will be more interesting. We may meet some other parties there who
+are going to the mountain."
+
+"Then I will order breakfast for you at seven o'clock," said Philippe.
+
+"Provided you find, to-morrow morning, that the weather is going to be
+good," said Mr. George. "We won't go unless you are convinced that it is
+going to be a fine day."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Philippe; "we judge a great deal by the smoke on the
+mountain. If it comes down the mountain on this side, then the weather
+is going to be bad. But if it goes away on the other side, off towards
+the sea, then we can generally depend upon a fine day."
+
+So it was agreed that Philippe should make an observation early in the
+morning, and if he concluded that the day would be a good one for the
+excursion, he was to come to Mr. George's room and let him know the
+decision. He was then to order the breakfast for seven o'clock, and the
+carriage for eight, while Mr. George was to call the rest of the party.
+
+The plan being thus formed, the party separated for the night. Rollo
+said that he meant to get up at half past five; or as soon as it was
+light, and go up to the top of the house, and see which way the smoke of
+Vesuvius was going.
+
+"Call for me, and I will go with you," said Josie.
+
+"I will," said Rollo.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+GOING UP.
+
+
+Rollo slept in the same room with Mr. George. He got up as soon as it
+was light, dressed himself in a hurried manner, and went out. In about
+ten minutes he returned.
+
+"Well, Rollo," said Mr. George, "what is the report?"
+
+"The smoke is not going either way," said Rollo. "It mounts
+right straight up into the air; but Philippe says he thinks it is going
+to be a fine day, and he has ordered breakfast. So I think you had
+better get up."
+
+At seven o'clock precisely the whole party were assembled in the dining
+room for breakfast. They ate their breakfast together at the end of one
+of the long tables. There were already two other parties in the room.
+There was one consisting of two gentlemen that were going to Vesuvius.
+There was another larger party that were about setting out for Rome.
+Their carriage was at the door, and the vetturino and his men were at
+work putting on the trunks and baggage.
+
+At eight o'clock precisely, the carriage for Mr. George's party came to
+the door. All were ready, and they all immediately got in. Philippe put
+in a basket containing provisions. Mrs. Gray had a small book, formed
+with leaves of blotting paper, to press the flowers in, which she meant
+to gather around the Hermitage while the rest of the party were gone up
+the mountain. Mr. George took his knapsack, though there seemed to be
+nothing in it.
+
+"What are you carrying up an empty knapsack for, uncle George?" asked
+Rollo.
+
+"To bring down specimens in," said Mr. George.
+
+"Ah," said Rollo, "I wish I had thought to take mine."
+
+"I'll let you have part of mine," said Mr. George. "It is big enough to
+hold the specimens for all of us."
+
+Philippe, when he found that the company were well seated in the
+carriage, shut the door, mounted the box with the coachman, and gave the
+order to drive on.
+
+The carriage was entirely open, and the party, as they drove along,
+enjoyed an uninterrupted view of every thing around them. They passed
+through one or two beautiful public squares, with palaces and churches
+on either hand, and lines of troops parading before them. Then they came
+to a long and exceedingly busy street, with the port and the shipping on
+one side, and stores, shops, hotels, and establishments of every kind,
+on the other. The street was crowded with people going to and fro, some
+on foot and some in carriages. A great many persons were carrying
+burdens on their heads. Some had jars, or pails, or little tubs of
+water; some had baskets heaped up with oranges, or other fruit. Some had
+long boards with a row of loaves of dough upon them, which they were
+taking to the bakers to be baked.
+
+The sidewalks, especially on the side towards the harbor, were thronged
+with people living in the open air, and practising their various trades
+there. There were cooks, cooking all sorts of provisions; and
+blacksmiths, working with hammers and anvils; and cabinet makers, sawing
+or planing, or gluing together the parts of tables or chairs. Then there
+were a great many family groups, some sitting in the sun around a boat
+drawn up, or upon and around a great chain cable, or an anchor; and
+others gathering about a fire made in a brazier, for the morning was
+cool. These families were engaged in all the usual domestic avocations
+of a household. The mothers were dressing the children, or getting the
+breakfast, while the grandmothers and aunts were knitting, or spinning
+thread with a distaff and spindle. The men were often employed in making
+nets.
+
+The carriage, which was drawn by three horses abreast, went on very
+rapidly through these scenes--so rapidly, in fact, that Mrs. Gray had
+not time to look at the various groups as much as she wished.
+
+"I mean to come and take a walk here some day," said Mrs. Gray, "and
+then I can look at all these things at my leisure."
+
+"O mother," said Josie, "you can't do that very well, on account of the
+beggars. If a gentleman and lady attempt to walk together in any of
+these streets of Naples, the beggars come and gather around them at
+every step."
+
+"Then I'll come some day in a carriage, and tell the coachman to drive
+slowly."
+
+"That will be just as bad," said Josie. "They'll come then around the
+carriage. The only way is to drive so fast that they cannot keep up."
+
+The carriage went on. It followed the road which led along the shore, as
+shown in the map given in a former chapter to illustrate the situation
+of Naples; but the shore was occupied with such a succession of hamlets
+and villages that the road seemed to form a continued street all the
+way. After getting a little beyond the confines of Naples, the road was
+thronged with people coming into town, some on foot, with loads of
+produce on their heads, some driving donkeys, with immense burdens of
+vegetables loaded in panniers on their backs, or drawn in carts behind
+them. There were omnibuses too, of a peculiar kind, filled with people,
+and a kind of carriage called a _calash_, which consisted of a sort of
+chaise, with an extended frame for people to stand upon all around it.
+The first class passengers in these calashes had seats in the chaise
+itself. The others stood up all around, and clung on as best they could
+to the back of the seat before them.
+
+Our party met a great many of these calashes coming into town, and
+bringing in loads of country people.
+
+"It is astonishing," said Rollo, "that one horse can draw so many
+people."
+
+"It is because the road is so level and smooth," said Mr. George. "The
+wheels run almost as easy upon it as they would upon a railroad."
+
+[Illustration: CALASH COMING INTO NAPLES.]
+
+After going on in this manner for about an hour,--all the time gently
+ascending, and passing through what seemed to be a continued succession
+of villages and towns,--the carriage stopped before the door of a kind
+of inn in the midst of a crowded street. The moment that the carriage
+stopped, it seemed to be surrounded by a crowd of ostlers, donkeys and
+donkey drivers, ragged boys and beggars; and such a clamor arose from
+the crowd as was quite appalling to hear, the more so as nothing could
+be understood of what was said, since it was all in Italian.
+
+"What is here?" said Mr. George to Philippe, when he saw that Philippe
+was getting down from the box.
+
+"This is Herculaneum," said Philippe, quietly.
+
+"Herculaneum!" repeated Rosie, amazed. "Why, I thought Herculaneum was
+all under ground."
+
+"Yes," said Mr. George, "it is. He means that this is where we go down."
+
+By this time Philippe had opened the carriage door. Mr. George got out,
+and then helped Mrs. Gray to descend. A half a dozen beggars, some lame,
+some blind, some old and paralytic, hovered about the steps, and held
+out tattered hats to Mrs. Gray, moaning all the time in piteous tones,
+and begging for alms. Mrs. Gray and Mr. George paid no attention to
+them, but passed directly on, followed by the children, through a door
+in a high wall, which led into a little court, and thence they passed
+into a sort of entrance hall, leading into a building. Philippe, who
+had preceded them, opened a closet, and took out some small candles. He
+lighted these candles by means of a lamp hanging against the wall, and
+gave one to each of the party. There was an open door near, with a broad
+flight of stone steps leading down, like stairs going down cellar. As
+soon as the candles were all lighted, the children heard somebody coming
+up these stairs. It was a party of visitors that had been down, and were
+now coming up. There were eight or ten of them, and the appearance of
+them as they came up, following each other in a long line, each carrying
+his candle in his hand, produced a very strange and picturesque effect.
+
+The guide who came up at the head of them exchanged a few words with
+Philippe in Italian, and then Philippe went on, leading his own party
+down the stairs. The stairs were wide, so that there was abundant room
+for the two parties to pass each other.
+
+After going down some way, and making one or two turnings, suddenly a
+light began to appear. It was a light like the light of day. It grew
+brighter and brighter, until at length Mr. George and Rollo, who were at
+the head of the party, after Philippe, came out under a large circular
+opening cut in the rock, through which they could look up to the open
+air, and to the sky.
+
+"This is the well," said Philippe; "the well that they were digging when
+they first came upon the ruins."
+
+The sides of the well were of solid lava, smooth and hard, just as they
+had been left by the workmen in digging down.
+
+The light which came down through the well shone upon a sort of
+platform, which, as well as the walls around it, was covered with moss
+and other green plants, which had been induced to vegetate there by the
+rain and the sunlight that had come down through the well. Mrs. Gray
+gathered some of these plants, and put them into her book.
+
+The party then went on down another flight of steps, which led into a
+series of dark, vaulted chambers, all hewn out of the rock. By holding
+the candles up to the sides of these chambers, the party could see here
+and there the remains of old arches, columns, and walls, which had been
+buried up in the lava, but were now partially disinterred.
+
+These remains were part of an ancient theatre; and after passing through
+several gloomy passages, the party came to a large chamber, where the
+whole front of the stage had been brought to view. Before it, in a
+range, were the seats for the musicians. On each side there was a
+massive pedestal. The guide said that there were two bronze statues on
+these pedestals when the place was first excavated, but that they had
+been taken away, and were now deposited in the museum at Naples.
+
+"We shall see them there, I suppose," said Mr. George, "when we go to
+visit the museum."
+
+"I shall take great interest in seeing them," said Mrs. Gray.
+
+In some places the old pavement of the theatre had been laid bare, and
+was plainly to be seen by holding the candles down close to the ground.
+In other places the painting on the walls had been found, with the
+colors quite fresh.
+
+"These must be places that the hot lava did not come to," said Rollo.
+
+"I suppose so," said Mr. George.
+
+It was not possible to obtain any information from the guide, for he
+could speak no language but the Italian, with the exception of a few
+English words and phrases, which he pronounced in so outlandish a
+manner, and mingled them up so much with his Neapolitan dialect, that it
+was very difficult to recognize them.
+
+"Questa vindow; vindow orizhinalle," he would say, meaning that the
+opening that he was pointing to was one of the original windows of the
+edifice. And then he would go on with a long sentence in the Neapolitan
+dialect, which was perfectly unintelligible from beginning to end.
+
+At length the exploration was ended, and the whole party ascended again
+to the surface of the ground. The guide took the candles from their
+hands as they came up, and Philippe paid him his fee. Mr. George led the
+way to the carriage, which was still waiting at the door. It was
+surrounded, as before, with poor children and beggars, who set up a loud
+clamor for alms as soon as the party made their appearance.
+
+Mr. George took no notice of them, but opened the door for Mrs. Gray and
+Rosie to get in. They got in, and Mrs. Gray took her place on the
+forward seat of the carriage,--that is, with her back to the
+horses,--and Rosie sat down by the side of her.
+
+"The other is your seat, Mrs. Gray," said Mr. George.
+
+"No," said Mrs. Gray; "we are going to ride here now, and let you and
+the boys have the back seat."
+
+"O, no, Mrs. Gray," said Mr. George; "please take the back seat."
+
+"By and by I will," said Mrs. Gray, "but not now."
+
+So Mr. George and the two boys got in and took the back seat, which was
+a great deal better than the forward seat, as it afforded so much better
+opportunity to see.
+
+All this was done in a moment, and Philippe, after shutting the door and
+mounting the box with the coachman, gave the order to drive on.
+
+"I think you and Rosie ought to have this seat, Mrs. Gray," said Rollo.
+
+"I have had that seat already for an hour," said Mrs. Gray. "There is no
+reason why I should have it all the time."
+
+"Why, yes," said Rollo; "because you are a lady."
+
+"My being a lady is a very good reason why the gentlemen should always
+offer me the best seat," said Mrs. Gray; "but it is no reason why I
+should always take it. Indeed, it is a very good reason why I should
+not; for it is not at all ladylike to be monopolizing and selfish in
+respect to good seats and good places when there is any thing to see."
+
+Mr. George did not care a great deal about the difference in the seats,
+but he was so much pleased with the disinterested and considerate spirit
+which Mrs. Gray manifested in this case, that he secretly resolved that
+he would invite her and Rosie to accompany him on every excursion that
+he made.
+
+The road now left the shore, and soon began to ascend the mountain,
+winding this way and that in long zigzags, through rich vineyards and
+groves of mulberry trees, all planted on soil which had been formed
+during the lapse of ages from the disintegration and decay of the lava
+which had come down from the volcano above. This land was very fertile;
+and as both the soil itself and the rocks from which it was formed were
+of a rich brown color, the country looked even more fertile than it
+really was. The road was excellent. Indeed, as Philippe had said, it was
+as hard and smooth as a floor. It was macadamized all the way, being
+made of lava, broken small, and so compacted together, and worn so hard
+and smooth by the wheels that had gone over it, and by the feet of the
+horses and mules, that it seemed one continuous surface of stone.
+
+The views on every side were of course continually enlarging and
+expanding the higher the carriage ascended, and as, in the long windings
+and zigzags of the road, the heads of the horses were turning
+continually into different directions, each person in the carriage,
+without changing his seat, or even turning his head, had all the
+different views presented successively before him.
+
+The whole expanse of the Bay of Naples was coming continually more and
+more fully into view, with the mountainous islands in the offing, which
+border it towards the sea, and a long line of hamlets, villages, and
+towns, extending, like a white fringe upon a green mantle, along the
+curve of the shore. Naples was seen in the distance, with the great
+Castle of St. Elmo on a rocky summit above it.
+
+Towards the mountain the travellers could see lofty peaks, with immense
+valleys between them. These valleys were extremely fertile and
+beautiful, except where recent streams of lava had flowed through them;
+that is, lava which had issued from the mountain within a few hundred
+years. From the road where the carriage was now moving, the party could
+look down upon the beds of these streams, and as the lava had already
+become partially decomposed, they looked like immense fields of rich
+brown soil turned up by the plough. These valleys, by which the mountain
+sides were furrowed, were so large, and the streams of lava in the beds
+of them were comparatively so small, that Mr. George said he did not
+wonder that the people in the towns along the sea shore were not more
+afraid of living so near the mountain.
+
+"There is room enough in these valleys," said he, "to hold the lava of a
+thousand eruptions, before they would be filled up."
+
+At length the carriage arrived at the Hermitage. The building stood, as
+Rollo had seen with his opera glass from the balcony of the hotel, at
+the outer extremity of a spur of the mountain, a mile or two from the
+foot of the great cone. The road to the foot of the great cone lay along
+the crest of the ridge. The observatory, which was a larger and
+handsomer building, stood just above and beyond it, and was surrounded
+with very pretty gardens.
+
+The grounds around the Hermitage were very fertile, and though they were
+steep and broken, they were so laid out in vineyards and groves of
+mulberry trees, and the sun shone upon them so pleasantly, that they
+presented a very attractive appearance. The Hermitage was a plain, but
+neat stone building, massive and white, with a broad area before it,
+where a great many carriages, and also a great many donkeys and mules,
+all saddled and bridled, were standing. The carriage drove up rapidly,
+and stopped before the door.
+
+Here followed another noise and uproar, from beggars, musicians, mule
+and donkey men, guides, and boys, who gathered about the carriage in a
+crowd as soon as it stopped, all clamoring for money or employment. Mr.
+George paid no attention to them, but assisting Mrs. Gray and Rosie to
+descend, he led the way into the house. There was a boy at the door to
+receive him. The boy led the way up a narrow flight of stone stairs to a
+sort of hall, surrounded on every side by massive walls of stone. There
+were two or three desolate-looking rooms opening from this hall. The
+room doors were open. The floors were all of stone. There were tables
+set in these rooms, and different parties were seated at them, partaking
+of refreshments that they had brought up with them in their
+carriages--the bags and baskets in which they had brought them up lying
+at their feet.
+
+These parties were waited upon by the monk, who walked about among the
+guests, bringing them glasses, knives and forks, bottles of wine, and
+any thing else that they required. He was dressed in the costume of his
+order, and looked, as Rosie said, precisely like the pictures of monks
+which she had seen in books in America.
+
+Philippe came up almost immediately after his party, bringing with him
+his basket of refreshments. He soon found a table that was unoccupied,
+and having placed chairs around it, he asked the monk to bring some
+glasses and some knives and forks.
+
+"And now," said he, addressing Mr. George, "if you will take some
+refreshment here, I will go and make the preparations for continuing
+the ascent. I will come up again as soon as we are ready."
+
+So Philippe went away. Mrs. Gray and Rosie sat down at the table, but
+the boys began to ramble about in the hall and in the rooms, to see what
+was to be seen, taking care, however, to go now and then to the table to
+get fresh pieces of bread and butter, and oranges, so as to keep
+themselves well supplied with provisions all the time.
+
+In about fifteen minutes Philippe came up, and said that the
+arrangements were made, and then the whole party went down stairs. There
+were two portantinas at the door, all ready. The men--an extremely
+rough-looking set--stood beside them.
+
+"Now, Rosie," said Mrs. Gray, "you may get into yours first, so that I
+may see how you do it."
+
+Philippe spread a shawl over the chair which Rosie was to go in, and
+Rosie took her seat. Four of the men then took hold of the ends of the
+poles, and first with a lift, and then a gentle toss, they raised it up
+to their shoulders. Rosie was a little frightened when she found herself
+going up so high into the air; but when the ends of the poles came down
+gently upon the men's shoulders and rested there, she felt reassured,
+and she looked down upon her mother with a smile.
+
+"How do you feel?" asked Mrs. Gray.
+
+"Beautifully," said Rosie.
+
+Mrs. Gray then took her seat in her chair, and the bearers lifted her up
+upon their shoulders in the same way. Both sets of bearers set off
+immediately.
+
+Rollo and Josie then mounted two donkeys, which Philippe had provided
+for them, while Mr. George set out on foot. In this order the party
+moved in quite a long procession from the area before the Hermitage, and
+began to follow the winding path which led along the crest of the ridge
+towards the foot of the cone. There were in all nearly thirty persons,
+thus:--
+
+ Travellers,                                         5
+ Portantina bearers, 8 to each chair,               16
+ Donkey drivers,                                     2
+ Strapmen,                                           2
+ Refreshment man,                                    1
+ Guide,                                              1
+                                                    __
+                                                    27
+
+The refreshment man carried the provisions, which he hoped to sell to
+the party by the way, in a basket poised upon his head.
+
+The procession moved on in this order, along a rough and narrow mule
+path, for nearly an hour. In some parts of the way the road was pretty
+nearly level; in others it was extremely broken and steep, where it
+passed across old streams of lava. Before them the travellers could see,
+all the way, the immense cone, which formed the summit of the mountain,
+rising into the sky. They saw that they were gradually drawing nearer
+and nearer to the foot of it, and on looking up they could see another
+party, which had preceded them in making the ascent, slowly toiling
+their way up the rocky steep, while, at a little distance on one side,
+another party were seen descending by a different path, which was seen
+winding down circuitously at a part of the mountain where the slope was
+formed of sand.
+
+At length Rollo saw at a distance before him a level place among the
+trees, very near the foot of the great cone. This he knew at once must
+be the halting place.
+
+"Uncle George," said he, "we are coming to the end of our ride."
+
+"Are we?" asked Mr. George.
+
+"Yes," said Rollo. "Do you see all those mules and donkeys there,
+standing together among the rocks and trees? That must be the halting
+place at the foot of the cone."
+
+Rollo was right. As soon as he and Josie arrived at this place, the
+donkey boys stopped the donkeys, and held them by the head for the
+riders to dismount. The bearers of the portantinas stopped too, to
+change hands.
+
+Mrs. Gray got out of her chair as soon as the men put it down, and went
+to Rosie's chair to ask Rosie how she had got along.
+
+"Very well indeed," said Rosie. "I like it very much."
+
+"Does your courage hold out to go up the cone?" asked Mrs. Gray.
+
+"O, yes, mother," said Rosie; "and I wish you would go up too."
+
+"No," replied Mrs. Gray; "I will go back to the Hermitage, and wait
+there until you come down. But you may go up if you wish, and if Mr.
+George is willing to take you."
+
+Mr. George said that he should like to have Rosie go very much, and he
+promised to take special care of her. So the new bearers lifted her up
+upon their shoulders again, and the strapmen that Philippe had provided
+came with their straps to Rollo and Josie. Mr. George took a cane which
+one of the boys provided him with, and thus the party began the ascent
+of the cone.
+
+[Illustration: THE ASCENT.]
+
+Rollo found, after a while, that he did not need the strapmen; so he let
+Josie have them both. Josie put his staff through the loops of the
+straps, and took hold of the ends of it, while the men walked before
+him, and pulled him up the rocks.
+
+Rollo kept ahead. He climbed faster than the rest of the train, but he
+stopped now and then on some projecting mass of lava to wait for them to
+come up. Next to Rollo came Josie, with the two strapmen pulling him up
+by their straps. Then the refreshment man, with his basket of provisions
+on his head. Last of all came the bearers of the portantina, with Rosie
+in the chair. Mr. George followed immediately after. He kept close to
+Rosie all the way, for he thought she would be afraid to be left alone
+with such wild and rough-looking men.
+
+Indeed, she doubtless would have been afraid, for the men were rough and
+wild in their demeanor, as well as in their looks. They made a great
+deal of noise, shouting and scolding all the way. Every now and then
+they would stop to rest, and then they would clamor for _buono manos_,
+sometimes begging for the money in very earnest and noisy, but suppliant
+tones, and sometimes demanding it in a very loud and threatening manner.
+Mr. George, however, paid no heed to these requests, but steadily
+refused to give the men any money, saying simply that Philippe would
+pay. At length the men, finding that Mr. George was cool and collected,
+and that he did not seem to be at all intimidated by their violent and
+boisterous demeanor, became quiet, and performed their duty in a more
+steady and orderly manner.
+
+The party went on climbing in this way for nearly an hour, and finally
+reached the summit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE SUMMIT.
+
+
+On coming out upon the brow of the mountain, Rollo saw at a short
+distance before him an immense column of dense white vapor pouring up
+into the air. His first impulse was to run forward up the sandy slope
+that still remained between the place where he stood and the margin of
+the crater; but he checked himself, and stopped where he was, to wait
+for the rest of the party. As soon as the portantina bearers reached the
+place where he stood, they set down the chair, and immediately the whole
+set crowded around Mr. George, and again demanded _buono manos_.
+
+"_Philippe payera_," said Mr. George, pointing down the mountain to the
+Hermitage--"_Philippe payera, la bas_," which means, "Philippe will pay
+when you go down."
+
+Mr. George said this in a very quiet manner, and then proceeded to help
+Rosie out of her chair. The guide who had come up the mountain with
+them then led the way, and Mr. George, Rollo, Rosie and Josie followed,
+towards the crater.
+
+And here I must stop a moment in my story to explain a little what a
+crater is, and how it is formed. A crater is a great circular pit or
+depression in the top of a volcano, formed by the sinking of the ground
+in that part. This sinking of the ground is caused apparently by the
+cooling and shrinking of the melted matter below, after a time when it
+has been unusually heated.
+
+Most boys have observed an effect similar to this in casting lead. When
+you attempt to cast any thing of lead,--a cannon, for example, or
+anchor, or even a bullet,--you will observe that as the lead cools, the
+portion of it which comes at the top of the mould shrinks and falls in,
+forming a little pit or depression, which you have to fill up by pouring
+in a little more lead. The reason is, that lead, as well as most other
+melted substances, shrinks when it cools. In the case of the bullet, for
+instance, all the lead which forms the mass of the bullet within the
+mould shrinks. The effect of this would be to collapse the sides, were
+it not that the sides have already become solid by contact with the cold
+mould. But the lead at the top, having been poured in last, is still
+fluid; and so that settles down as the lead cools below, and forms the
+little pit or depression, which the boy presently fills up by pouring in
+a little more lead.
+
+It is much the same with a volcano. For some reason or other,--no one as
+yet knows what it is,--the interior of a volcano changes its temperature
+very much at different times. Sometimes for a period of several months,
+or years, it seems to be all the time growing hotter and hotter. The
+substances below become more and more melted, and formed into lava. The
+water, which is all the time filtering in through the crevices and
+openings, in the rocks around the sides of the mountain, is forced down
+under this molten mass by the immense pressure given to it by the height
+of the mountain. There it is turned into steam. For a time it is kept
+down by the vast weight of the lava which is over it, but after a time
+the elastic force of it gets so great that a bubble of it bursts up, and
+comes out at the top of the mountain in a great, thundering puff,
+bringing up some portion of the melted lava with it, and throwing it
+high into the air.
+
+The lava thus thrown up falls down again, and when there is no wind it
+falls down close around the opening. Some of it falls _into_ the
+opening, where it is melted again. The rest falls on the sides, and in
+process of time it begins to build up a small hill, as it were, all
+around the opening, though the puffs and explosions of steam that are
+continually coming out keep a mouth open at the top.
+
+Things go on in this way for some time, until at length, for some
+mysterious reason which nobody understands, the interior of the mountain
+begins to moderate its heat, and finally to grow cool--not entirely
+cool, but cooler than it has been. The puffs and explosions gradually
+cease. The lava within the bowels of the mountain shrinks as it cools.
+The sides of the mountain being firm and solid, do not collapse; but the
+top, being still more or less soft, falls in, not suddenly, but by a
+slow and gradual motion, corresponding with the progress of the cooling
+below. So slow, indeed, is this progress, that sometimes the ground
+continues sinking slowly in this way for several years before the crater
+is fully formed.
+
+All this time, although the puffs and explosions have in a great measure
+ceased, the steam continues to blow out, more or less steadily, from a
+great many small openings, some of them in the bottom of the crater, and
+some, perhaps, in the sides. This steam is changed into visible vapor
+when it comes out where the air is cool, and the several streams,
+mingling together as they rise into the air, form a cloudy column, which
+is often called _smoke_. Strictly speaking, however, it is not smoke.
+It is almost entirely composed of steam.
+
+After continuing in this state for some time, the interior of the
+mountain begins to grow hot again. Then the steam and hot lava begin to
+puff out at some one or other of the vents in the bottom of the crater.
+If the heating goes on, the lava comes out hotter and hotter from the
+opening, and by melting away the sides of it and blowing it out, it
+gradually enlarges it. The lava that is blown out, too, falls down all
+around the hole, and gradually builds up a mound around it, like a
+little dome, while the successive blasts keep the outlet open all the
+time at the top. This small cone, rising up gradually thus, in the
+bottom of the crater formed by the sinking in of the mountain before,
+and the chimney opening up through the centre of it, gives vent to all
+the steam from below, while a great many of the other orifices are
+stopped up by the lava which comes up out of the great opening falling
+into them. After a time, the lava that is thrown out spreads over the
+whole floor of the crater in a mass of black, corrugated slag, with the
+small cone rising from the centre of it, and the opening at the top
+glowing like the mouth of a fiery furnace, and bursting out every now
+and then, with explosions of steam, and red-hot stones, and melted
+lava.
+
+This was precisely the condition of Vesuvius at the time that Rollo
+visited it. The top of the mountain had fallen in, in two places, some
+time before, on account of the cooling below, and two great craters had
+been formed. Now, the furnace had been for some time heating up again,
+and in each crater a black cone, with a fiery mouth open at the apex of
+it, was gradually growing up, and covering the whole floor of the crater
+with the black and molten matter which it was ejecting.
+
+It was to the edge of one of these craters that the party now advanced,
+and the engraving will give you some idea of the view which it
+presented.
+
+[Illustration: VIEW OF THE CRATER.]
+
+There were several persons, both ladies and gentlemen, standing on the
+margin of the crater when our party arrived. Mr. George led Rosie to the
+place, and looked down with her into the abyss. The sides of it were
+formed of precipitous cliffs of rocks and sand, all beautifully colored,
+in every shade of red and yellow, by the deposits of sulphur which had
+accumulated upon them from the fumes of the volcano. The floor of the
+crater was black as jet, being covered by the molten lava, which had
+gradually spread over it. The surface of this lava lay in wave-like
+corrugations, like the hide of a rhinoceros, showing that it was or had
+been semi-fluid. In the centre rose a great, black, rounded cone, like
+the cupola of an immense blast furnace. This cone was about fifty feet
+high, and there was an opening at the top eight or ten feet in diameter,
+which glowed with a furious heat, and emitted quietly, but continually,
+a red-hot breath of sulphurous vapor.
+
+After remaining thus quiet for a few moments, suddenly it would give a
+gasp, and immediately afterwards there would burst forth a thundering
+explosion, which seemed to come up from a great depth below, and threw
+into the air a shower of stones and scraps of molten lava, which, after
+ascending to a great height, came down again, and fell, with a dripping
+sound, upon and around the cone. Similar explosions occurred at
+intervals of a few minutes, all the time that the party remained.
+
+Rosie was at first very much afraid of these explosions, and she wished
+to go back. Mr. George himself was also afraid at first to stand very
+near the edge of the crater; but it was not on account of the
+explosions, but for fear that the cliff might cave in. Indeed, the
+cliffs all around were cracked off, and in some places leaning over,
+apparently ready to fall; and even at the spot where the spectators
+stood looking into the crater, there was a fissure running along
+parallel to the cliff, some feet behind them. At first Mr. George was
+afraid to step over this crack.
+
+"How do they know," said he to himself, "but that the whole mass will
+fall and carry them all down into the gulf below?"
+
+He found, however, after waiting a little while, that it did not fall,
+and there were besides other masses a little farther along, as seen in
+the engraving, which had become separated entirely from the cliff behind
+them, leaving a chasm open two or three feet wide; and yet they did not
+fall. So Mr. George gradually acquired more confidence, and at length
+went cautiously forward, and looked over the brink.
+
+Rosie, however, hung back. She was alarmed to see Rollo and Josie go so
+near.
+
+"Come back, Josie," said she; "come back. You _must not_ go so near."
+
+So Mr. George called the boys back, and they obeyed.
+
+The walls of this crater were on every side almost perpendicular. As the
+central part had gradually sunk, the sides had caved off and fallen in,
+and then afterwards the lava that had been thrown up had spread over the
+floor, and covered it with a bed of a half-fluid looking substance,
+that was as black as pitch, and which, though it was really now pretty
+hard, looked as if a stone thrown down upon it would sink immediately
+into it, out of sight.
+
+The crater seemed to be four or five hundred feet across, and the walls
+of it were eighty or a hundred feet high.
+
+After Mr. George and the children had been standing upon the brink of
+this abyss some time, watching the explosions, the guide who had come up
+with them from the Hermitage beckoned to Mr. George, and saying
+something at the same time in Italian, made signs as if he wished the
+party to go with him to some other place.
+
+"Come, boys," said Mr. George; "he wants us to go with him."
+
+"Where does he want us to go?" asked Rollo.
+
+"I don't know," said Mr. George. "I cannot understand what he says; but
+let us go and see."
+
+So the whole party followed the guide, Mr. George leading Rosie by the
+hand. The guide conducted them along a narrow path through the sand,
+which led away from the crater behind a hill which formed one of the
+sides of it at a place where it was so steep below the path down the
+mountain side, that Rosie was almost afraid to go. Mr. George, however,
+held her firmly by the hand, and he charged Rollo and Josie to follow
+very carefully. After going on in this way for some distance, they came
+to another crater very similar to the first, only the sides of it,
+instead of being formed, like the first, of perpendicular cliffs,
+consisted of steep, sloping banks of volcanic sand and gravel. There
+was, however, the same pitchy bed of lava spread out all over the bottom
+of it below, and in the centre a black cone thirty feet high, with a
+fiery furnace mouth at the top, glowing with heat, and throwing out
+continually the same thundering puffs of steam, and projecting the same
+masses of melted lava and hot stones into the air.
+
+"Ah, here is another crater!" said Mr. George.
+
+"Yes," said Rollo; "only it is smaller than the first. I like the first
+the best."
+
+While they were standing on the narrow ridge which formed the brink of
+the crater, looking down, their guide by their side, another guide came
+by, conducting two young men; and they, instead of stopping on the
+brink, as Mr. George and his party had done, began at once to go down.
+There was a sort of track in the sand down the slope, and in this track
+the young men, half walking, half sliding, descended.
+
+"Why, uncle George!" exclaimed Rollo, "they are going down into the
+crater. Let Josie and me go too."
+
+Mr. George saw by a glance that the descent into the crater must be
+safe, for the young men were led by one of the regular mountain guides;
+and besides, there was a track in the sand, showing that other parties
+had gone down before. So he said that Rollo and Josie might go.
+
+"You may go down with this party," said Mr. George, "and then you can
+come up and take care of Rosie while I go down with _our_ guide."
+
+So Rollo and Josie followed the two young men down. Mr. George watched
+them from above. They went down very easily, for the sand was soft, and
+the track turned this way and that, so as to avoid the steepest places.
+The black lava covered the whole floor of the crater, and Mr. George and
+Rosie supposed that those who had gone down would be able only to go to
+the edge of it; but, to their great surprise, they found that the guide,
+as soon as he reached it, stepped upon it, and walked boldly out,
+followed by the young men and by Rollo and Josie, like a party of boys
+walking out upon the ice on a pond.
+
+"Why, uncle George!" exclaimed Rosie, "they are walking over the lava.
+Why don't they sink in?"
+
+"I cannot imagine," said Mr. George. "I supposed it was soft."
+
+In fact, it _was_ soft; that is, it was soft enough to flow if it had
+been on a slope, but yet it was hard enough to walk upon. A current of
+lava, when it is coming down the mountain side, can often be walked upon
+while it is still in motion. Its fluidity at the best is very imperfect,
+and its motion is very slow. The lava which Rollo was upon in the floor
+of the crater, though pretty nearly cool and hard on the surface, was
+hot below. Rollo could see the redness of the heat in the holes and
+crevices. Probably, if a heavy stone were laid upon the bed of lava, it
+would gradually have sunk into it. And yet persons could walk over it
+without any difficulty.
+
+Rollo and Josie followed the young men over the lava until they came so
+near the cone in the centre that if they were to advance farther they
+would be in danger of having the lava which was thrown up from it fall
+upon their heads. Here they found some boys, who belonged to the
+mountain, engaged in getting out small pieces of the lava, where it was
+hot and soft, and pressing coins into it, to sell to the people above.
+Rollo and Josie bought some of these specimens of the boys, and put them
+hot in their pockets.
+
+While the boys were thus near the cone in the centre of the crater,
+they were sometimes lost to view from Mr. George and Rosie, on account
+of the puffs of vapor which the wind blew over them. Rosie was very much
+afraid whenever this happened. She thought that Josie and Rollo were
+lost; but Mr. George assured her that there was no danger.
+
+"I should think there would be a great deal of danger," said she.
+
+"So should I," said Mr. George, "of my own judgment. But I do not go by
+my own judgment in such cases."
+
+"Whose judgment do you go by?" asked Rosie.
+
+"By the guides'," replied Mr. George. "The guides know all about the
+mountain. They are up here every day. They have been watching it for
+years, and they can tell where it is safe to go, and where it is
+dangerous, better than any stranger. So I give up my judgment entirely,
+and go altogether by theirs. You will see Rollo and Josie coming back
+out of the smoke pretty soon, as safe as they went in."
+
+This prediction proved to be true. In a few minutes, on account of some
+change in the gusts of wind, the masses of vapor in the crater broke
+into openings, and rolled off towards the other side, and in the
+openings Rosie could see the boys coming back over the black surface of
+the lava, their footsteps making a curious sound upon it, as if they
+were walking over clinkers. Very soon they reached the side, and then
+came toiling up the path which ascended the slope of sand.
+
+Rollo and Josie were both full of enthusiasm in describing what they had
+seen at the bottom of the crater, and near the cone, and they strongly
+recommended to Rosie to go down too.
+
+"I'll go with you, Rosie," said Josie, "and show you the way."
+
+But Rosie declined the adventure, and Mr. George told her that she did
+right to do so.
+
+"Why, what is there to be afraid of?" asked Josie. "There is no
+danger--not the least in the world."
+
+"True," said Mr. George; "but going into such places does not give so
+much pleasure to young ladies as it does to such courageous young
+gentlemen as you. But I wish to go down myself, and I will leave Rosie
+under your care here while I am gone."
+
+Pretty near where the party stood while engaged in this conversation,
+several persons were gathered about what seemed to be a fire. A sort of
+smoke came up from the ground in the centre of the group, and by the
+side of it were one or two baskets containing eggs, bread, bottles of
+wine, and other refreshments. Mr. George led the way to this place, and
+then he found that what seemed to be a fire was really a jet of hot
+steam and sulphurous gases that was issuing from a cleft among the
+rocks. The place was very near the crest of the crater, and the people
+that stood around it were watching to see men cook in the jets of steam.
+There was a little level place inside the crevice, just beneath the
+ground, where they could put eggs and other such things, and after
+leaving them there a short time, they were found to be nicely cooked. As
+fast as they were done, the men took them out and sold them to the
+bystanders.
+
+Mr. George left Rosie and the two boys here while he went down into the
+crater. The guide went with him to show him the way. In about ten
+minutes Mr. George returned, and found the three children standing round
+the _cuisine_, as the men called the place where they cooked. Rollo had
+been buying some of the eggs, and he and Josie and Rosie were eating
+them.
+
+"Mr. George," said Josie, "are these boiled eggs, or baked eggs, or
+roasted eggs, or what?"
+
+"They seem to be steamed eggs," said Mr. George.
+
+"I suppose," said Rollo, "that by digging about here in the sand, we
+might find a place where it would be just warm enough to _hatch_ eggs."
+
+"No doubt," said Mr. George.
+
+Just then Rollo observed that the two young men whom he and Josie had
+followed down into the crater were standing at a little distance, and
+attentively regarding some sort of instrument which they had in their
+hands.
+
+"I mean to go and see what they are doing," said Rollo.
+
+So saying, he looked into Mr. George's face, and waited to see if Mr.
+George had any objection to his going.
+
+"Very well," said Mr. George.
+
+So Rollo went off to the place where the young men were standing, and
+soon afterwards Mr. George and the others of the party could see that
+the strangers were showing him the instrument, and apparently explaining
+it to him. Pretty soon Rollo returned and reported that the two young
+men were students, and that the instrument which they had was a metallic
+barometer, and that they were measuring the height of the mountain with
+it.
+
+This metallic barometer is quite a curious instrument. You will often
+read, in books, of measuring the height of a mountain, or other lofty
+place, _by the barometer_; and to most people this is quite a mystery.
+The explanation of it is, however, very simple. It is this: The earth is
+surrounded on all sides by the atmosphere, which, though very light,
+has a certain weight, and it presses with considerable force upon the
+ground, and upon every thing that is exposed to it. If, however, you go
+up from the ground, as, for instance, when you ascend a mountain, the
+higher you go, the less the pressure is. This is naturally to be
+expected, for the higher you go in such a case, the less air there is
+above you to press. Now, a barometer is an instrument to measure the
+pressure of the air, just as a thermometer measures the heat or coldness
+of it. A metallic barometer is a new kind, in which the air presses on a
+curiously contrived ring or band of brass, and according as it presses
+more or less, it moves an index like the hand of a watch, which is
+placed on the face of it. It was such an instrument as this that the two
+students had, on Vesuvius.
+
+The way in which you use such an instrument to measure the height of a
+mountain is this: You look at the instrument when you are at the bottom
+of the mountain, before you begin your ascent, and see how it stands.
+There is a little index like the hour hand of a watch, which is movable.
+This you set at the point where the other index stands when you are at
+the foot of the mountain. Then you begin your ascent. You shut up your
+barometer if you please, and put it in your knapsack, or in the chaise
+box, or any where else you please. Wherever you put it, the pressure of
+the air will find it out, and penetrate to it, and as you gradually rise
+from the surface of the earth, the index, which is connected with the
+curious brass ring, moves slowly backward as the pressure diminishes.
+This motion continues as long as you continue ascending. If you come to
+a level place, it remains stationary as long as the level continues. If
+you descend, it goes forward a little, and then begins to go back again
+as soon as you once more begin to ascend. Then, when you get to the top
+of the mountain, you look at it, and you see at once how much the
+pressure of the air has diminished. From this, by an easy calculation,
+you tell at once how high you have come.
+
+Mr. George knew all about the barometer, and the means of measuring
+heights with it, though he had never seen an instrument of this
+particular kind. He was accordingly very much interested in Rollo's
+account of it, and he said he had a great mind to go and see it himself.
+
+"I wish you would," said Rollo. "I told them that I thought you would
+like to see it, and they said that they should be very happy to show it
+to you."
+
+Mr. George accordingly went to see the instrument, and the students gave
+him so cordial a reception, that he formed at once quite an intimate
+acquaintance with them. Indeed they were quite pleased to find a person
+on the mountain who sympathized with them in their scientific inquiries
+and pursuits, and was capable of understanding and appreciating them.
+They told Mr. George that they were going to remain on the mountain
+until after dark, in order to see it in its night aspects, and they
+invited him to remain with them.
+
+"Then to-morrow," said they, "we are going across the mountain down
+through the back ravines, to study the geological structure of the old
+lava beds, and so come out at Pompeii."
+
+Mr. George said there could be nothing that he should enjoy more, were
+it not that he had ladies under his charge, and that he felt bound to
+accompany them back to Naples.
+
+Rollo, when he heard this invitation, immediately felt a strong desire
+that Mr. George should go, and that he might go too. He instantly
+perceived, however, that this was out of the question; but he thought
+that by cordially falling in with the plan of allowing Mr. George to go,
+he might, perhaps, be the means of accomplishing it. Many boys, in such
+a case, when they find that a plan of enjoyment that is proposed is one
+which they cannot themselves share, do all they can to hinder and
+oppose it altogether. But Rollo had now travelled about the world so
+much, and had acquired so much experience, that he was above such folly
+as this.
+
+"Uncle George," said he, "you can go just as well as not. I can take
+care of Rosie down the mountain to the Hermitage, and then we shall have
+nothing to do but to get into the carriage and ride home."
+
+Mr. George saw at once how generous it was in Rollo to make this offer,
+and he said he would so far accept it as to let Rollo take charge of the
+party going home from the Hermitage in the carriage; but he felt bound,
+he said, not to leave Rosie until he had returned her safe to her
+mother's hands. So he said to the students,--
+
+"I will go down the cone with Rosie and the two boys, and accompany them
+as far as the Hermitage. There I shall find Mrs. Gray and the carriage.
+If Mrs. Gray seems cordially willing to go home with the children alone,
+I will come back here and join you; but if I find she does not seem
+entirely willing,--if she looks sober about it,--then I will go back to
+Naples; though in that case I shall come to Pompeii to-morrow, and shall
+hope to meet you there."
+
+"I hope the lady will be willing to release you," said one of the
+students.
+
+[Illustration: COMING DOWN.]
+
+"I have but little doubt that she will," said Mr. George.
+
+Accordingly, after rambling about on the margin of the crater a little
+time longer, and gathering all the specimens which they required, Mr.
+George and the children commenced their descent. One of the students
+went down with them, in order to accompany Mr. George back. The descent
+was very easy, for the path led down a slope, where, instead of being
+rocky as it was where they came up, there was little else but loose
+sand, so that at every step they took they slid down a great way, and
+thus went, very fast and very easily, from the top to the bottom.
+
+When they reached the foot of the slope, they found the mules and
+donkeys there. Rollo and Josie insisted that Mr. George and the student
+should ride, because they had got to ascend the cone again.
+
+"Besides," said Rollo, "if you ride you can get there quicker, and
+arrange the business with Mrs. Gray."
+
+Mr. George was right in anticipating that Mrs. Gray would give her
+cordial consent to have him leave the party.
+
+"I shall miss your company," said she, "but I feel perfectly safe in
+going home in the carriage with Philippe and the boys. Besides, I shall
+want to hear an account of your adventures on the mountain in the
+night, and in crossing over by the ravines to-morrow. And then if you
+are willing," she added, "we will all come and meet you at Pompeii
+to-morrow."
+
+"I should like that very much indeed," said Mr. George. "Philippe will
+arrange every thing for you."
+
+This being all settled, Mrs. Gray and the children entered the carriage
+and set out for Naples, while Mr. George and the student turned their
+faces towards the mountain again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+POMPEII.
+
+
+On the evening of the day on which the excursion to Vesuvius was made,
+Rollo came into Mrs. Gray's room, wearing a somewhat disturbed
+countenance. He told Mrs. Gray that he had got some bad news for her.
+
+"Ah," said Mrs. Gray, "I'm sorry to hear that. What is the bad news?"
+
+"Philippe is engaged for to-morrow," said Rollo, "and so he cannot go
+with us to Pompeii."
+
+"O, how sorry I am!" said Josie. "What shall we do?"
+
+"How is he engaged?" asked Mrs. Gray.
+
+"He is going with a party to Baiae."
+
+"Where is Baiae?" asked Josie. "Is it any where near Pompeii?"
+
+"No," said Rollo; "it is exactly in the opposite direction. It is on the
+sea coast to the west, and Pompeii is on the sea coast to the east."
+
+"What is there to be seen at Baiae?" asked Mrs. Gray.
+
+"Nothing but old ruins," said Rollo, contemptuously. "I don't see why
+people should want to go so far, and take away our guide, just to see
+old ruins. Besides, there are plenty of old ruins at Pompeii.
+
+"But, Mrs. Gray," continued Rollo, "I don't think we need any guide at
+all to go to Pompeii. We can go by ourselves."
+
+"Do you think so?" said Mrs. Gray.
+
+"Why, you see I can engage a carriage to take us there myself," said
+Rollo. "I shall say 'Pompeii!' to the coachman, and point that way. And
+when we get to Pompeii, we shall find uncle George there, and then we
+shall get along well enough."
+
+"True," said Mrs. Gray. "But then," she added, after thinking a moment,
+"perhaps we might miss Mr. George, after all. I don't know how large a
+place it is. If it is a large place, we might miss him in some of the
+streets."
+
+Here Rosie opened a guide book which lay upon the table, and turned to a
+map of Pompeii which she recollected to have seen there. Her hope was to
+find that there were not many streets, and thus to show that there would
+not be much danger of missing Mr. George. She found, however, that the
+plan of the town looked quite complicated. There was a long street,
+called the Street of the Tombs, leading into it; and then within the
+walls there were a great many other streets, crossing each other, and
+running in all directions. So she shut the book, and did not say a word,
+thinking that the sight of the plan would impede, rather than promote,
+the acceptance of Rollo's proposal.
+
+"I don't think there are a great many streets," said Rollo. "There were
+none at all at Herculaneum."
+
+"Ah, but Herculaneum is a very different thing," said Mrs. Gray.
+"Herculaneum was buried up very deep with solid lava, and only a very
+small portion of it has been explored, and that you go down into as you
+would into a cellar or a mine. Pompeii was but just covered, and that
+only with sand and ashes; and the sand and ashes have all been dug out
+and carted off from a large part of the city, so as to bring the whole
+out in the open day."
+
+"Then it will be a great deal pleasanter place to visit," said Rosie.
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Gray; "and I don't think that there will be much danger
+in our going by ourselves. If we don't find Mr. George, we can walk
+about a while, and then come back in the carriage again."
+
+"We might go by the railroad if we chose," said Rollo. "There is a
+railroad that runs along the coast, and passes very near Pompeii."
+
+"I think we had better take a carriage," said Mrs. Gray, "because a
+carriage will take us and leave us wherever we wish. There will be more
+changes if we go by the railroad, and we should need to speak more."
+
+It was finally agreed that the party should go, and Rollo and Josie were
+to have a carriage ready at nine o'clock the next morning. They were all
+to breakfast at eight o'clock.
+
+Now it happens there is no difficulty in getting a carriage at Naples.
+The streets are full of them. They are very pretty carriages too, as
+they are seen standing in pleasant weather, with the tops turned back,
+showing the soft cushions on the seats that look so inviting. The
+coachmen who drive these carriages are very eager to get customers. They
+watch at the doors of the hotels, and every where, indeed, along the
+streets, and whenever they see a lady and gentleman coming, they drive
+forward to meet them, and call out to offer them the carriage; and
+sometimes they go along for some distance by the side of the strangers,
+trying to induce them to get in.
+
+Some of these carriages have two horses, and contain a front and a back
+seat. Others have only one horse, and only a back seat; but they all
+look very nice and tidy, and the price to be paid for them is quite low.
+
+The party all breakfasted together the next morning, and they went down
+into the dining room for their breakfast, instead of taking it in Mrs.
+Gray's room. They did this at the request of the boys, who said it was
+more amusing to go into the public room and see the different parties
+that came in for early breakfasts, and hear them talk, in various
+languages, of the different excursions that they are going to make that
+day.
+
+At about a quarter before nine, Rollo and Josie went out to look for a
+carriage. Rollo stopped at the office of the hotel in going out, and
+inquired of the secretary how much ought to be paid for a carriage with
+two horses to go to Pompeii. The secretary told him three dollars.
+
+He and Josie then went out into the street. There was a long row of
+carriages, some with two horses and some with one, standing in the
+middle of the street opposite to the hotel. The coachmen of all these
+carriages, as soon as they saw the boys come out, began immediately to
+call out to them, and crack their whips, and make other such
+demonstrations to attract their attention.
+
+"Now," said Rollo to Josie, "we must walk along carelessly, and not
+appear to look at the carriages as if we wanted one; for if we do, they
+will come driving towards us in a body. We will walk along quietly till
+we come to a nice carriage and a first rate pair of horses, and then
+we'll go right up to the coachman and engage him."
+
+This the boys did. They sauntered along with a careless air, concealing
+the desire they had to engage a carriage, until at last they came to one
+which Rollo thought would do. The instant the boys stopped before this
+carriage, the coachman jumped down from his box, and began to open the
+carriage door for them, and at the same time all the other coachmen in
+the line began cracking their whips, and calling out to the boys again
+to come and take their carriages. Rollo paid no attention to them, but
+addressed the coachman of the carriage which he had selected, and said
+in French, "To Pompeii."
+
+"_Si, signore, si, signore,_" said the coachman, which Rollo knew very
+well meant "Yes, sir, yes, sir." At the same time the coachman made
+eager gestures for the boys to get in.
+
+But Rollo would not get in, but waited to make his bargain about the
+price.
+
+"_Quanto?_" said he. Quanto is the Italian word for _how much_. In
+saying _Quanto_, Rollo held up the fingers of his right hand, to denote
+to the coachman that he was to show him by his fingers how many
+piastres.
+
+The coachman said four, speaking in Italian, and at the same time held
+up four fingers.
+
+"No," said Rollo, "three." And Rollo held up three fingers.
+
+The coachman seemed to hesitate a moment; but when he saw that the boys
+were ready to go away and apply for another carriage unless he would
+take them for the regular and proper price, he said, "_Si, signore,_"
+again, and once more motioned for the boys to get in. So they got in,
+and the coachman drove to the hotel door.
+
+Mrs. Gray and Rosie were all ready, and when they came to see the
+carriage which the boys had chosen for them, they were very much pleased
+with it.
+
+"I don't see but that you can manage the business, Rollo," said Mrs.
+Gray, "as well as any courier or valet de place that we could have."
+
+"How could you make him understand what you wanted, without speaking
+Italian?" asked Rosie.
+
+"I did it partly by signs," said Rollo.
+
+The road to Pompeii, for the first few miles, was the same with the one
+to Vesuvius, which they had taken the day before. It led first through
+the busiest part of Naples, along by the docks and the shipping, and
+then through the series of towns and villages which line the shore of
+the bay, at the foot of the slopes of Vesuvius. After passing in this
+manner through one continued street for five or six miles, the road came
+out more into the open country, where fine views were had of the
+mountain on one side, and of the bay on the other. The mountain sides
+were generally extremely fertile, being covered with vineyards and
+groves, though here and there were to be seen the streams of lava which
+had come down within a few hundred years, and which had not yet become
+disintegrated and converted into soil. These streams of lava looked like
+torrents of brown water suddenly turned into stone, as they came
+streaming down the mountain side.
+
+In one place, one of these streams of lava passed under a town. That is
+to say, such was the appearance. The fact was, really, that the lava had
+destroyed the part of the town that came in its way, and the people had
+built up their houses again on the top of it. The lava was cut down a
+little in making the road, so that you could see at the road side a
+portion of the stream, with the houses upon it.
+
+After riding on in this way two or three hours, the carriage stopped at
+a very pleasant place, among vineyards and mulberry groves, at the
+entrance of a pretty lane, which led to the gates of Pompeii.
+
+"Now," said Rosie, "our difficulties are going to begin. I don't see how
+we are going to know where to look for Mr. George."
+
+"We will see," said Mrs. Gray.
+
+The coachman opened the door, and all the party got out. Just then they
+saw at a short distance before them, where there was a sort of gate,
+several men in a species of uniform, which denoted that they were the
+persons appointed by the government to take charge of the place, and to
+show it to visitors. One of these men, as soon as he saw the party,
+seemed to look very much pleased, and he advanced to meet them with a
+smiling face. At the same time he said something to a boy who was near
+by, and the boy ran off into the town. The young man in uniform, when he
+came near to Mrs. Gray, said something which at first she could not
+understand, but which she soon perceived was an attempt to pronounce the
+words, _Il Signore Holiday_.
+
+"Ah! he has seen Mr. George," said Mrs. Gray. "Mr. George has been here,
+and has told him to watch for us."
+
+This supposition on the part of Mrs. Gray was correct. Mr. George had
+come early with the students to Pompeii, in order to be ready there to
+receive Mrs. Gray and her party, and he had stationed this man at the
+gate to watch for them, with directions to send the boy in for him at an
+appointed place, as soon as they should arrive. The boy soon found Mr.
+George, and he came immediately back to the gate. Of course the whole
+party were very much pleased to see him.
+
+"And yet," said Mrs. Gray, "Rollo has managed so well that I should not
+have felt any anxiety if we had continued under his sole charge all
+day."
+
+The party now commenced their exploration of Pompeii. They found it, as
+they had expected, all open to the day. A great many of the streets,
+with all the houses bordering them, had been cleared, and all the sand
+and gravel under which they had been buried had been carted away.
+Immense heaps of this rubbish were lying outside the entrance, and the
+party had passed them in the carriage on their approach to the town.
+They had been lying there so long, however, that they were covered with
+grass and small trees, and they looked like great railroad embankments.
+
+Indeed, the appearance which Pompeii presents now is that of a large
+open village of ruined and roofless one-storied houses. Many of the
+houses were originally two stories high, it is true; but the upper
+stories have been destroyed or shaken down, and in general it is the
+lower story only that now remains.
+
+The structure of the houses, in respect to plan and general arrangement,
+is very different from that of the dwellings built in our towns at the
+present day. The chief reasons for the difference arise from the absence
+of windows and chimneys in the houses of the ancients, and of course the
+leaving out of windows and chimneys in a house makes it necessary to
+change every thing.
+
+The inhabitants of Pompeii had no chimneys, because the climate there is
+so mild that they seldom needed a fire; and when they did need one, it
+was easier to make a small one in an open vessel, and let it stand in
+the middle of the room, or wherever it was required, than to make a
+chimney and a fireplace. The open pan in which the fires were made in
+those days stood on legs, and could be moved about any where. The fire
+was made of small twigs cut from the trees. The people would let the pan
+stand in the open air until the twigs were burnt to coal, and then they
+would carry the pan, with the embers still glowing, into the room which
+they wished to warm, and place it wherever it was required.
+
+The same contrivance is used at the present day in Naples, and in all
+the towns of that region. In going along the streets in a cool evening
+or morning, you will often see one of these brass pans before a door,
+with a little fire blazing in it, and children or other persons before
+it, warming their hands. Afterwards, if you watch, you will see that the
+people take it into the house.
+
+The ancient inhabitants of Pompeii depended entirely on arrangements
+like these for warming their rooms. There is not a chimney to be found
+in the whole town.
+
+In respect to windows, the reason why they did not have them was because
+they had no glass to put into them. They could not make glass in those
+days well enough and easily enough to use it for windows. Of course they
+had openings in their houses to admit the air and the light, and these
+openings might perhaps be called windows. But in order to prevent the
+wind and rain from coming in, it was necessary to have them placed in
+sheltered situations, as, for example, under porticos and piazzas. The
+custom therefore arose of having a great many porticos in the houses,
+with rooms opening from them; and in order that they might not be too
+much exposed, they were generally made so as to have the open side of
+them inwards, towards the centre of the house, where a small, square
+place was left, without a roof over it, to admit the light and air.
+
+Of course the rain would come in through this open space, and the floor
+of it was generally formed into a square marble basin, to receive the
+water. This was called the _impluvium_. Sometimes there was a fountain
+in the centre of the impluvium, and all around it were the porticos,
+within and under which were the doors opening into the different rooms.
+
+The guide, who conducted Mr. George and his party, led them into several
+of these houses, and every one was much interested in examining the
+arrangement of the rooms, and in imagining how the people looked in
+going in and out, and in living in them. The bed rooms were extremely
+small. The walls of some of them were beautifully painted, but the rooms
+themselves were often not much bigger than a state room in a steamship.
+The bedstead was a sort of berth, formed upon a marble shelf built
+across from wall to wall.
+
+In some of the houses there were more rooms than could be arranged
+around one court; and in such cases there were two, and sometimes three
+courts. In one case, the third court was a garden, with a beautiful
+portico formed of ornamental columns all around it. Beneath this portico
+the ladies of the house, in rainy weather, could walk at their ease, and
+see the flowers growing in the garden, just as well as if the weather
+were fair.
+
+Under this portico, all around, was a subterranean chamber, which seemed
+to be used as a sort of cellar. And yet it was very neatly finished, and
+the walls of it were ornamented in such a way as to lead people to
+suppose that it might have been used as a cool walk in warm weather.
+This passage way was first discovered by means of the steps leading down
+to it. It was almost full of earth, which earth consisted of volcanic
+sand and ashes, which had flowed into it in the form of mud.
+
+On one side of this subterranean passage way, near the entrance, there
+were a number of skeletons found. These skeletons were in a standing
+position against the wall, where the persons had been stopped and buried
+up by the mud as it flowed in. The marks left by the bodies against the
+wall remain to this day, and Rollo and all the party saw them.
+
+One of the skeletons was that of a female, and there were a great many
+rings on the fingers of the hands, and bracelets, necklaces, and other
+ornaments on the other bones. From this circumstance it is supposed
+that this person was the wife of the owner of the house, and that in
+trying to save herself and her jewelry upon her, she had fled with the
+servants to this cellar, and there had been overwhelmed.
+
+There were very few skeletons found in the houses of Pompeii; from which
+circumstance it is supposed that the inhabitants generally had time to
+escape. There was, however, one remarkable case. It was that of a
+sentinel in his sentry box, at the gate of the city. He would not leave
+his post, as it would seem, and so perished at the station where he had
+been placed. His head, with the helmet still upon it, was carried to the
+museum at Naples, where it is now seen by all the world, and every one
+who sees it utters some expression of praise for the courage and
+fidelity which the poor fellow displayed in fulfilling his trust.
+
+The streets of the town were narrow, but they were paved substantially
+with large and solid stones, flat at the top. Along these streets there
+were a great many very curious shops, such as barbers' shops, painters'
+shops, wine shops, and the like. The wine shops were furnished with deep
+jars set in a sort of stone counter. The jars were open-mouthed, and the
+men who kept the shops were accustomed apparently to dip the wine out
+of them, in selling to their customers.
+
+After passing through a number of these streets, the party came at
+length to a great public square called the _Forum_. This square was
+surrounded with the ruins of temples, and other great public edifices.
+The columns and porticos which bordered the square are all now more or
+less in ruins; but there are still so many of them standing as to show
+exactly what the forms of the buildings must have been when they were
+complete, and how the square must have appeared.
+
+In another part of the town were the remains of two theatres, and
+outside the walls an immense amphitheatre, where were exhibited the
+combats of wild beasts, and those of the gladiators. There are a great
+many ruins of amphitheatres like this scattered over Italy. They are of
+an oval form, and the seats extend all around. The place where the
+combats took place was a level spot in the centre, called the _arena_.
+
+In viewing these various ruins, Mr. George and the two students seemed
+most interested in the theatres, and temples, and other great public
+edifices, while Mrs. Gray and the children seemed to think a great deal
+more of the houses and the shops. There was one baker's shop with the
+oven entire, and three stone hand mills, in which the baker used to
+grind his corn. There were a great many curious utensils and implements
+found in this shop, when it was first excavated; but Mr. George said
+that they had all been removed.
+
+"I wish they had let them stay here," said Rollo.
+
+"It would be a great deal more interesting to us to see them here," said
+Mr. George, "but they would not have been safe. The government has
+therefore built an immense museum at Naples, and every thing that is
+movable has been carried there. So we come here first to see the town
+and the remains of the shops and the houses, and then afterwards we go
+to the museum at Naples to see the things that were found in them."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After rambling about in Pompeii for several hours, the party went out by
+another gate, where they found the carriage waiting for them, and so
+returned home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE MUSEUM.
+
+
+The great museum at Naples is one of the most wonderful collections of
+curiosities in the world. It is contained in an immense building, which
+is divided into numerous galleries and halls, each of which is devoted
+to some special department of art.
+
+It was the plan of our party to go and see the museum on the day after
+their visit to Pompeii,--or rather to begin to see it; for it requires a
+great deal more than one day even to walk cursorily through the rooms.
+
+On the morning of the day in question, Mrs. Gray said to Mr. George, at
+breakfast, that she had a plan to propose.
+
+"What is it?" asked Mr. George.
+
+"I am afraid that you will not think it very polite in me to propose
+it," said Mrs. Gray, "but it is this: that when we get into the museum,
+we should divide into two parties. Let Rollo go with me and the
+children, while you join your friends the students, and accompany them.
+Then we can go through the rooms in our way, and you can go in yours."
+
+Mr. George hesitated. For a moment he seemed not to know what to reply
+to this proposal.
+
+"The reason is," said Mrs. Gray, "that the objects which you and the
+students will have in view in the visit, may very likely be different
+from ours. You will want to study the antiquities, and the old Latin and
+Greek inscriptions, and the monuments illustrating ancient history; but
+we should not understand such things. We shall be interested in the
+paintings, and the rings, and jewels, and ornaments found in Pompeii,
+and in the household implements and utensils."
+
+"But we shall want to see all those things, too," said Mr. George.
+
+"True," replied Mrs. Gray; "but you will not wish to devote so great a
+portion of time to them. You will wish to devote most of your time to
+the learned things, and will pass rapidly over the pretty things and the
+curious things, while with us it will be just the other way."
+
+"Yes, uncle George," said Rollo, "that will be the best plan. Josie and
+I can take care of Mrs. Gray, and you can go where you please."
+
+Mr. George seemed at first quite unwilling to accept this proposal. He
+said he would go with Mrs. Gray to any part of the museum that she
+pleased, and remain there with her as long as she desired; and that, far
+from being any inconvenience to him to do so, it would be a pleasure.
+But Mrs. Gray said that it was on her account more than on his, that she
+made the proposal.
+
+"Because," said she, "if you are with us I shall be thinking all the
+time that perhaps it would be better for you to be somewhere else;
+whereas, with Rollo and the children, I can stroll about wherever I
+please."
+
+In this view of the case, Mr. George consented to her proposal.
+Accordingly, after breakfast, he left Rollo to engage a carriage and
+take Mrs. Gray and the others to the museum, while he went to find his
+two friends, the students, at another hotel, where they were lodging.
+They were all to meet in the hall of the museum at ten o'clock.
+
+At half past nine Rollo had a nice carriage at the door. Josie sat in
+the carriage while Rollo went up to Mrs. Gray's room to tell her that it
+was ready. Rosie, who was still far from being strong, leaned on Rollo's
+arm coming down stairs.
+
+"I am very glad that you are going to have the care of us to-day,
+instead of Mr. George," said she.
+
+"So am I," said Rollo. "I am very glad indeed."
+
+"I don't care any thing at all about his old learned inscriptions," said
+Rosie.
+
+"Nor do I much," said Rollo. "Still they are very curious, when once we
+understand them."
+
+"Perhaps they may be," said Rosie, "but I don't care about them. What I
+want is, to see the pretty things."
+
+"Yes," said Rollo, "and I will show you all the pretty things I can
+find."
+
+Rollo assisted the two ladies into the carriage, and then, after getting
+in himself, he ordered the coachman to drive to the museum. The way lay
+first through one or two open squares, bordered with churches, porticos,
+and palaces, and then through a long, straight street, called the
+_Toledo_. This is the principal street of shops in Naples, and is said
+to be the most populous and crowded street in Europe. It was so thronged
+with people every where, in the middle of the street as well as upon the
+sidewalks, that the carriage could scarcely pass along.
+
+At length, however, it arrived at the museum. There was a spacious stone
+platform before the building, with a broad flight of stone steps
+ascending to it. Rollo assisted his party to descend from the carriage,
+and then he stopped to pay the coachman, while they went up the steps.
+Rollo joined them on the platform.
+
+The doors of the museum building, which were immensely large, were open,
+but they were guarded by a soldier, who walked back and forth before the
+entrance, carrying his gun with the bayonet set. Rollo paid no attention
+to him, but walked directly in. Josie walked by his side, and Mrs. Gray
+and Rosie followed them.
+
+"Now," said Rollo, "we must wait here until uncle George comes."
+
+The hall into which they had entered was very large and very lofty, and
+the columns and staircases that were to be seen here and there adorning
+it were very grand. On different sides were various passages, with doors
+leading to the several apartments and ranges of apartments of the
+museum. These doors were all open, but the entrance to each was closed
+by an iron gate, and each gate had a man standing near it to guard it.
+Over each of these doors was an inscription containing the name of the
+particular department of the museum to which it led.
+
+By the side of the great door of entrance was a small room in a corner,
+kept by two men in uniform. This was the place for the visitors to
+deposit their canes and umbrellas in. It is not safe to allow people in
+general to take such things into cabinets of curiosities, for there are
+many who have so little discretion, that, in pointing to the objects
+around them, they would often touch them with the iron end of the
+umbrella or the cane, and so scratch or otherwise injure them.
+
+Rollo took Mrs. Gray's parasol from her hand and gave it to one of the
+men. The man put a strap around it. The strap had a ticket with the
+number 49 upon it. He gave another ticket, also marked 49, to Rollo, and
+Rollo put it in his pocket.
+
+At this moment Rollo saw Mr. George and the two students coming in at
+the door. The three gentlemen deposited their canes at the little office
+just as Mrs. Gray had done with her parasol, and then the whole party
+advanced into the great hall.
+
+Mr. George and the students went with Mrs. Gray and the children into
+the first room, but they soon left them, and after that Rollo was the
+sole guide.
+
+Each department of the museum was contained in a separate suit of
+apartments, at the entrance to which, as I have already said, there was
+a small iron gate across the doorway. This little gate was kept shut and
+locked; but there was a man who stood by it, inside, always ready to
+open it whenever he saw any visitors coming. He always shut and locked
+the door again when the visitors went in. Then, finally, when they were
+ready to come out, he unlocked the gate for them, and it was then that
+they were expected to pay the fee for visiting that part of the museum.
+Rollo had taken care to inquire about this beforehand, and he had
+provided himself with a sufficient number of pieces of money of the
+right value, so as not to have any trouble in making change.
+
+In most of the rooms there were men who had pictures for sale,
+illustrating the objects contained there, for visitors to buy, in order
+to carry them home as souvenirs of their visit, and to show to their
+friends at home. Mrs. Gray bought quite a number of these pictures, and
+Rollo himself bought several.
+
+The rooms that interested the young persons most were those which
+contained the tools and household implements, and the various utensils
+found at Pompeii. In general these things were much more similar to the
+corresponding articles of the present day than one would have expected
+to find. But yet there were many differences, both of form and
+structure, which made them extremely curious to see.
+
+For instance, there was a _bell_ found in one of the houses; but
+instead of being hollow, and having a clapper inside, as is the custom
+at the present day, it consisted simply of a large, flat ring, like a
+plate, with a hole through the centre of it. This ring was hung up by
+means of a short chain, and by the side of it there was hung a sort of
+hammer. To ring the bell it was necessary to strike it with this hammer.
+An attendant in the room did this while Mrs. Gray and Rollo were there,
+to let them hear how the bell sounded.
+
+"It sounds very well indeed," said Rollo.
+
+"Yes," replied Rosie; "but I don't think it is quite so musical as one
+of our bells."
+
+There were several pairs of steelyards in the room, too, which were very
+much like the steelyards of the present day, only they were made of a
+more ornamental form. The weights were quite pretty little pieces of
+sculpture and statuary.
+
+There were some very curious and pretty little cooking fireplaces, one
+of which, in particular, the young people admired very much indeed.
+Rosie said that she should have liked it very much herself, when she was
+a child, to play with. In the centre was a sort of pan for the coals, or
+embers, and all around was a raised border, made double, with a space
+between to contain water. In one corner there was a raised part, with
+an opening to pour in the water, and in front, below, there was a small
+faucet for the purpose of drawing the water out. Of course the embers or
+coals in the centre of the pan kept the water in the reservoir around it
+always warm.
+
+There was also a little place on one side where a kettle or a saucepan
+could stand on two supports, with an opening below to put the coals
+under.
+
+A great many of the floors in Pompeii were found to be in mosaic; that
+is, they were formed of various colored stones, arranged together in a
+sort of bed of cement, in such a manner as to show a picture, or some
+other ornamental design. In many cases there were only two kinds of
+stones used, black and white; and these were arranged so as to form
+borders, scrolls, and pattern work,--as it is called,--of various kinds.
+In some places a border was formed around the room, and the figure of
+some animal was placed in the centre. In other cases groups of animals,
+or of men, were represented, in a very perfect manner. It has always
+been considered wonderful that such spirited and beautiful designs could
+be so well represented by a method apparently so rude as the arrangement
+on a floor of bits of different colored stones.
+
+The best of these mosaics were taken up and removed to the museum. You
+would think at first that it would be impossible to remove them in any
+other way than by taking them all to pieces and putting them together
+again, each little stone in its proper place, on the floor of the
+museum, where the mosaic was intended to go. But the artists contrived a
+way to take them up without all this labor, and thus several of the best
+ones have been removed without disturbing the arrangement of the stones,
+and have been laid down on the floors of the museum.
+
+[Illustration: THE MOSAIC.]
+
+One of the most curious of these mosaics is a representation of a dog,
+which was placed just _within_ the entrance of a house, and just _at_
+the entrance were the words, also in mosaic, CAVE CANEM, which is the
+Latin for LOOK OUT FOR THE DOG. On the preceding page is a
+representation of this mosaic.
+
+This mosaic was curious rather than wonderful; but in another house
+there was one which has always been considered a most marvellous
+production, on account of the complicated character of the design, and
+the immense number of stones composing it. It represents a battle scene,
+and contains a great number of men and horses, all mingled together in
+great confusion on the field of battle. The number of pieces of stone
+used in making this mosaic is almost incalculable.
+
+Although it was originally made as part of a floor, it is now very
+carefully guarded, and no one is allowed to walk upon it. It is
+surrounded by a railing, and along one side of it there is a raised
+platform for visitors to stand upon in order to see it to advantage.
+
+There were one or two large rooms that were filled with
+beautifully-formed jars and vases, of a brownish color, and ornamented
+upon the outside with figures and devices of all kinds. These devices
+represented all sorts of scenes, and they are considered extremely
+valuable on account of the light they throw on the manners and customs,
+and the modes of life, which prevailed in those ancient days. Some of
+these vases are of very great value. They are very large, and to enable
+the visitor to see them on all sides, without danger of breaking them, a
+great many of them are mounted in the museum on stands fitted with a
+revolving top, so that they can be turned round, and made to present all
+the sides successively to the spectator. In addition to this, some of
+the finest specimens are protected by a large glass bell placed over
+them.
+
+Mrs. Gray and the children found Mr. George and the two students in this
+room, when they first came into it. Mr. George said that they were going
+to stay there nearly all that day. They wished to examine the drawings
+on the vases in detail. Rollo looked at a few of them, but he could not
+understand them very well.
+
+"You will understand them better," said Mr. George, "when you have
+learned more about the ancient mythology."
+
+"But then I shall not be here to see them," rejoined Rollo.
+
+"True," replied Mr. George, "but they have all been copied and engraved,
+and you will find them exactly reproduced in books in all the great
+libraries of the world. All that you can do now is to take a general
+view of them, and of the room containing them, and to examine one or two
+in detail, and then, by and by, when you wish to study them more
+particularly, you must do it from the drawings. You will find that the
+interest that you will take in the drawings will be greatly increased by
+your having had this opportunity to see the originals."
+
+Mr. George conducted Mrs. Gray and Rosie to one of the vases which stood
+near a window, on one of the revolving stands; and while an attendant
+turned it slowly round, so as to exhibit the successive sides to view,
+he explained to them the meaning of the figures, and showed them what
+the different people were doing.
+
+After remaining a short time in this department, Rollo and his party
+went on, leaving Mr. George and the two students still there.
+
+But the room which interested Mrs. Gray and Rosie most, was what is
+called the _Gem Room_. It contains all the gems and jewelry, and other
+personal ornaments, that were found at Herculaneum and Pompeii, as well
+as a great many other very curious things. There were rings, bracelets,
+and necklaces, made of gold, and adorned with precious stones; and there
+were a great many signets and other gems engraved in the most delicate
+and exquisite manner. These things were all arranged in glass cases, so
+that they could be seen to great advantage, but they could not be
+touched. There were a great many other curious things in this room; and
+there were also a great many other very curious rooms, all of which Mrs.
+Gray and the children walked through, though there were so many things
+to be seen in them, that, in the end, they became quite bewildered. In
+the mean time the hours passed away, and at length Mrs. Gray, looking at
+her watch, said it was nearly four o'clock, which was the hour for the
+museum to be closed. So they did not go into any more rooms, but
+concluded to go home. They went down the great staircase, towards the
+entrance door, and then, after stopping to get Mrs. Gray's parasol, they
+took a carriage and drove home. Mrs. Gray said that she had seen the
+museum, but not the things that were in it.
+
+"We have scarcely seen one in a thousand of them," said she.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE STREETS.
+
+
+Mr. George continued for many days wholly engrossed with his studies in
+the museum, so that Rollo saw very little of him, and had no help from
+him in respect to finding occupation and amusement.
+
+"Indeed," said Rollo to Rosie one evening, "I have lost the use of him
+altogether."
+
+Rollo was, however, not at all at a loss for the means of spending his
+time. It was an endless amusement for him and Josie to ramble about the
+streets, and observe the countless variety of scenes and incidents which
+were going on there. It is the custom at Naples, among all the lower
+classes of the people, to do every thing in the street, and all the
+sidewalks and open spaces, especially along the quays, were occupied by
+hundreds of families, engaged in every species of trade and manufacture,
+and in all sorts of domestic occupations. Here, in a wide place by the
+side of the street, cabinet makers would be at work, polishing tables,
+or making veneers, or putting together the frames of bureaus. A little
+farther on, a large space would be occupied with the manufacture of iron
+bedsteads, with all the operations of forging, filing, polishing, and
+gilding going on in the open air. Next, a turner would be seen, either
+out upon the sidewalk, or close to his door, turning with a bow lathe;
+and next a range of families all along the street, the women knitting or
+sewing, or spinning yarn, and the children playing about on the
+pavements near. Perhaps one of the oldest of the children would be
+tending the baby, either holding it in her arms, or rocking it to sleep
+in a round-bottomed basket on the pavement. These round-bottomed baskets
+were all the cradles they seemed to have.
+
+But what pleased Rollo and Josie most was to stroll along a street in a
+part of the town where the sailors lived. It was at a place where there
+was a wide beach, which was entirely covered with fishing boats, that
+had been drawn up there on the sand. Between the boats and the street
+there was a level place, where the fishermen's families had established
+themselves. Some were making or mending nets. Some were frying fish in
+the open air. Some were gathered around a big stone with a flat top,
+which they were using for a table, and were eating their breakfast or
+their dinner there. Some were lying stretched out upon the ground, or
+curled up in corners, fast asleep.
+
+It was a very curious sight to see, and it would have been a very pretty
+one, had it not been that almost all these people were clothed in rags,
+and looked like so many beggars. Indeed, there were a great many real
+beggars every where about,--so many, in fact, that no lady could have
+any peace at all in walking about the streets of Naples, on account of
+their importunity. Mrs. Gray and Rosie would have liked very much to
+have walked about with Rollo and Josie, in the excursions which they
+made in this way; but they could not do it, for every where they went,
+such a number of poor, diseased, crippled, and wretched-looking objects
+came up to them, and gathered around them, as to destroy all the
+pleasure.
+
+There is no need of this at all; for Naples is a very thrifty place, and
+the people that live in it are abundantly able to take care of their
+poor. They have, in fact, built hospitals and endowed them, and the poor
+people who have no friends to take care of them might go to the
+hospitals if they chose. But as the climate in that country is mild, and
+they can live well enough in the open air, they prefer to ramble about
+the streets and beg, and there are enough inconsiderate people among
+the visitors always at Naples, from foreign countries, to give them
+money sufficient to keep up the system.
+
+Thus every person among the lower classes in Naples, who has any
+disease, or infirmity, or malformation of any kind, considers it a
+treasure, and comes out into the street to exhibit it to all beholders,
+as a means of gaining money. No imagination can conceive more shocking
+and disgusting spectacles than those which the police of Naples allow to
+be brought up right before every lady or gentleman who attempts to take
+a walk in the streets. These sights meet you at every turn. Even if you
+take a carriage, you do not escape from them; for the beggars crowd
+around the carriage when you get into it, at the door of the hotel, and
+watch for it there when you come back. And when you stop on the way to
+go into a shop, all that are in that street at the time gather up and
+wait at the door till you come out; and while you are getting into the
+carriage, and the coachman is shutting the door and mounting upon his
+box, they implore, and moan, and beg, and entreat you to give them a
+little money. They are so wretched, they say, they are dying of hunger.
+
+A great many of these people are really poor, no doubt; but they have no
+right thus to force their poverty and their diseases upon the attention
+of the public, when other modes, and far better modes, are provided for
+their relief. A great many of them, however, are impostors. Indeed, one
+of the greatest objections to the system of allowing the poor to get
+their living by begging in the streets, is the direct tendency of it to
+encourage and train impostors. No one can possibly know from hearing the
+complaint of a poor person by the wayside, or from the appearance which
+he presents, either how much he needs help, or how much help he may have
+already received; and of course, by this mode of dispensing charity, the
+best possible facilities are afforded for every species of deceit and
+imposture.
+
+Mrs. Gray understood all this, and she saw that if every body would
+firmly and perseveringly refuse to give money to applicants in the
+public streets, the system of making an ostentatious parade of misery,
+real and counterfeited, that now prevails in Naples, would soon come to
+an end. She accordingly never gave any thing, neither did Mr. George or
+Rollo. Indeed Rollo and Josie were seldom molested when they were
+walking by themselves, for the beggars--considering them as only two
+boys--did not expect to get any thing from them.
+
+"The only beggar that I ever gave any thing to in Naples," said Rollo,
+"was a poor black dog. I gave him half of a fried cake that I bought at
+a stall. He swallowed it in an instant. I call him a beggar because he
+looked up into my face so piteously, though he did not ask for any
+thing. He did not speak a word."
+
+"And what did he do after you gave him the cake?" asked Rosie.
+
+"He looked up a moment to see if I was going to give him any more," said
+Rollo, "and then he walked away."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+AN EXCURSION.
+
+
+"Uncle George," said Rollo one morning, while he and Mr. George were
+eating their breakfast in the dining room, or, as they call it in
+Europe, the _salle a manger_, of the hotel, "how much longer are you
+going to be in studying out those things in the museum?"
+
+"Why?" asked Mr. George. "Does your comfort or enjoyment depend in any
+way on the decision of that question?"
+
+"Only we want you to go about with us, somewhere," said Rollo.
+
+"Why, you don't need me to go about with you," said Mr. George.
+"Contrive some sort of excursion yourself, and take the ladies out and
+amuse them. You might take them out to see Pozzuoli and the Solfatara.
+Besides, you would be doing me a great service if you would go."
+
+"How?" asked Rollo.
+
+"Why, I shall want to go by and by myself," said Mr. George, "and I
+don't want to have any trouble in finding the way. But you like finding
+your way about. Now, I wish you would take a carriage, and go and take
+the ladies on an excursion along the bay to the westward, and show them
+Virgil's Tomb, and the Grotto of Posilipo, and Pozzuoli, where the
+apostle Paul landed on his famous journey to Rome, and the temple of
+Serapis, half under water, and the great amphitheatre, and the
+Solfatara, which is the crater of a volcano almost extinct. All these
+things lie pretty near together along the shores of the bay to the
+westward of Naples, and you can go and see them in one afternoon, they
+say. If you go first, you will find out all about the excursion, and
+what we do about guides and custodians at the different places; and
+then, when I get ready, you can go again and take me, and I shall not
+have any trouble about it."
+
+"Just give me a list of all those places," said Rollo, eagerly.
+
+As he spoke he handed Mr. George a pencil and a piece of paper, which he
+took out of his pocket. Mr. George wrote down the list, and Rollo,
+taking it, went up to Mrs. Gray's room.
+
+Rollo proposed the plan to Mrs. Gray of making the excursion which Mr.
+George had indicated, and she was very much pleased with it.
+
+"We'll study it all out in the guide books this evening," said Rollo,
+"and then to-morrow we will go."
+
+Mrs. Gray approved of this plan, and so Rollo looked out in the guide
+book the account which was given there of the several places and objects
+of interest on Mr. George's list, and read the passages aloud to the
+whole party. Rosie sat beside him on the sofa, and helped him find the
+places, and also looked over him while he read. The account which was
+given of the places was very interesting indeed.
+
+The next morning, about ten o'clock, after Mr. George had gone to the
+museum, Rollo and Josie went out to find a carriage. They inquired at
+the hotel, before they went, how much they ought to pay. When they
+reached the stand, they looked along the line, and finally chose one
+with a nice and pretty blue lining, and two jet black horses. They made
+their bargain with the coachman, and then drove to the door.
+
+[Illustration: THE PUBLIC GARDENS.]
+
+Mrs. Gray and Rosie were ready, and soon the party were driving rapidly
+along on their way out of town, passing by the gates of the public
+gardens, which lie in a beautiful situation along the shore, in the
+western part of the city. You have a view of these gardens in the
+engraving; and in the distance, over the tops of the houses, you see a
+long ridge of high land running down towards the sea. It was through
+this ridge of high land that the famous subterranean passage way, called
+the _Grotto of Posilipo_, was cut, to open a way for the road into the
+country without going over the hill.
+
+After driving along the street which lies between the gardens and the
+houses on the right, as seen in the engraving, the carriage turned into
+another street, which runs behind the houses, and thence gradually
+ascended towards the entrance to the grotto. Just before reaching the
+entrance, the land seemed to rise to a very lofty height before and on
+each side of the road; and it was so built up in terraces, and garden
+walls, and platforms, and staircases of villas, that there seemed to be
+no way out. Rosie could not imagine, she said, where they could possibly
+be going, until at length, at a sudden turn between two lofty walls,
+they saw the immense mouth of the grotto opening before them.
+
+The grotto was wide enough for two carriages to pass, and very high. It
+was lighted with lamps, and was full of people and of carriages going
+and coming. Here and there along the walls of rock on each side, near
+the entrance, there were a great many curious structures to be seen, and
+openings cut in the rock. On one side was a chapel excavated in the
+rock, with an iron railing in front of it, to separate it from the
+road. Within this railing there was an altar, with lamps burning before
+it, and a priest begging money of the people passing by. On the other
+side was an ancient monument, with a long Latin inscription upon it.
+Above were a great many different openings cut in the rock.
+
+Rollo had ordered the coachman to stop at the entrance to Virgil's Tomb,
+and the carriage accordingly drew up before a gate which seemed to be
+set in the solid wall of rock which formed one side of the entrance to
+the grotto. There was a man standing at this gate, and as soon as he saw
+the carriage stop, he unlocked it. They all got out of the carriage, and
+went in. The way led up a long and narrow, and very steep flight of
+stone steps, which brought the party out at last into a sort of
+vineyard, or garden, on the surface of the ground above.
+
+Here there was a path which ascended some distance higher, among grape
+vines and fruit trees, until at last it came to a place where there was
+a beautiful view of Naples and Vesuvius, and all the bay. After stopping
+a little time to admire this view, the party went on, following the
+path, which now began to descend again, and to go back towards the mouth
+of the grotto. Here, after climbing up and down among a great number of
+caverns and excavations of all kinds cut in the rock, they came down to
+a place just over the top of the mouth of the great grotto, where the
+structure which is called _Virgil's Tomb_ is situated. It was a very
+strange place. Rosie said that it was the strangest place that ever she
+was in. Far beneath them they could hear the sound of the carriages, and
+the voices of men who were going in and coming out, at the mouth of the
+great grotto below.
+
+After remaining here a few minutes, the party all went back down the
+path through the vineyard to the carriage again.
+
+The coachman then drove on through the grotto. It was full of carts,
+carriages, loaded donkeys, and foot passengers, all going to or
+returning from Naples. The floor of it was paved with stone, and at
+different distances up the sides could be seen the marks made by the
+hubs of wheels in former ages, when the roadway was at a higher level
+than it is now. The natural rock is so soft that the wheel hubs cut into
+it very easily. This is the reason why the floor is paved too, for the
+rock itself would not stand the wear.
+
+After passing through the grotto, the party emerged into a wide and open
+country, which presented beautiful views on every side. The road was
+excellent, being as hard and smooth as a floor, and the coachman drove
+on at great speed.
+
+The party came at length in sight of a town, which stood on a promontory
+jutting out into the sea, at a short distance before them. This was the
+town called in ancient times _Puteoli_. It was in those days the great
+seaport of the whole bay, for Naples had not then been built. It was
+also the nearest good port to Rome, in coming from the south, and it was
+accordingly here that the apostle Paul landed when he was sent to Rome
+by Festus, in consequence of his having appealed unto Caesar, when
+accused and persecuted by the Jews. There are the ruins of an old mole
+still to be seen stretching out into the sea, opposite to the port, and
+Rollo said he thought that it must have been on that mole that Paul
+landed.[D]
+
+[Footnote D: See Acts xxv, 9-12; also Acts xxviii, 13, 14.]
+
+"Puteoli was a great place in old times," said Rollo; "and that's the
+reason why they had such an immense amphitheatre here. We are going to
+see the ruins of it presently; but first, we are going to see
+Solfatara."
+
+Just at the entrance to Puteoli, or Pozzuoli, as it is now called, the
+party came to a bridge where there was a small ascent, that made it
+necessary for the carriage to go slowly; and here a great number of
+men, women, and children were assembled, some guides, but most of them
+beggars; and as soon as the carriage arrived, they all broke out at once
+with such a noise and clamor, that Rosie was for a moment quite alarmed.
+
+"Never fear, Rosie," said Rollo; "I know how to manage them."
+
+Ever so many old ragged hats and caps were stretched out towards the
+carriage, and three or four men and boys, who all wanted to be employed
+as guides, began struggling together to climb up upon the carriage, to
+get the seat with the driver. Rollo looked at them all, with a view of
+making a selection among them. He chose an intelligent-looking boy of
+about his own age, that the men had pushed back.
+
+"Do you speak French?" said Rollo to the boy, of course speaking in
+French himself in asking the question.
+
+"A little, sir," said the boy.
+
+"Then I engage _you_," said Rollo. Then touching the coachman, he
+pointed to the boy, and said, "_Questo_," which means "_this one_."
+
+So the coachman pushed the other men back, and made room for the boy to
+get up on the seat with him. He then whipped up the horses, and soon the
+other guides and the beggars, with all their noise and clamor, were left
+behind.
+
+"You managed it very well, Rollo," said Mrs. Gray.
+
+"Yes, Rollo," said Rosie, "you did it very well indeed. Next time I
+shall not be at all afraid."
+
+After riding a little farther, the coachman turned into a sort of lane,
+and after going on for some way in the lane, he stopped. The boy got
+down, and said that it would be necessary for them to walk the rest of
+the way. So the whole party descended from the carriage, and began their
+walk.
+
+After going on for nearly a quarter of a mile, they passed through a
+gate which seemed to be connected with some rude sort of manufactory,
+and then, walking on a little farther, they found themselves within the
+crater. It was a small, circular valley, surrounded on all sides by a
+ridge of earth, apparently one or two hundred feet high. The valley
+might have been about a third or a quarter of a mile in diameter. The
+bottom of it was level, and was covered with a scanty vegetation. The
+soil was very white, as if it were formed of substances calcined by
+exposure to the fire.
+
+An old man met them at the gate, and led the way in towards the middle
+of the crater, along a sort of cart road. After a while he stopped, and
+took up a large stone--as large as a man's head. This stone he threw
+down with great force upon the ground two or three times, to show how
+hollow the ground sounded. It did sound very hollow indeed, and the
+peculiar resonance which is produced here by this experiment is
+generally considered as proving that there is a great void space below
+the surface, and that the bottom of the crater may some day or other
+fall in.
+
+At a little distance farther on, on the other side of the crater, and
+close at the foot of the ridge of earth that surrounds it, there was to
+be seen a column of dense smoke, or rather of vapor, coming up out of
+the ground.
+
+The guide led the way towards this place, and all the party followed
+him. As they approached it, they heard a roaring sound, which grew
+louder and louder as they drew near. When they arrived at the spot, they
+saw that the steam was issuing from the mouth of a cavern that opened
+there; and as it came out, it made a noise like the roaring of a steam
+pipe when the engineer is blowing off steam.
+
+Mrs. Gray and the three children stood gazing at this phenomenon for
+some time in silence. At length Rollo said, "What an astonishing blast
+that is, to be coming up out of the earth, day and night, continually
+and forever!"
+
+"The ground is very hot all about here," said the boy. "See!"
+
+So saying, he pointed to the old man, who was at work not far from the
+mouth of the cave, digging into the ground a little way with a sharp
+hoe. He dug down a few inches, and then took up a hoe full of the earth,
+and held it out to Rollo to try it with his fingers, that he might feel
+how hot it was. Rollo put his fingers upon the earth, but he could not
+hold them there an instant.
+
+It seemed to Mrs. Gray that it must be dangerous to remain long in such
+a place; and so she prepared to move away, and Rollo and Josie, as they
+had now seen all that there was to be seen at this place, followed her.
+They went on by the road, round to another part of the crater, where
+there was some sort of manufactory of alum. The alum was made from the
+saline earth which was found there, and the evaporating basins used in
+the process, instead of being placed over a fire, were simply set in the
+ground, so that the process of evaporation was carried on by the natural
+heat of the soil.
+
+After leaving this place, the party followed the circuit of the road
+still farther, until at last it brought them back to the place where
+they had entered the crater; and here, after paying the old man who had
+conducted them around, they passed out through the gate, and went down
+the lane to their carriage.
+
+"Now to the amphitheatre," said Rollo, addressing the coachman.
+
+So they all got into the carriage again, and the coachman drove down the
+lane; and after going back towards the town a little way, and making
+various turns, he stopped at last before a great wooden gate. A man in a
+certain uniform appeared at the gate and unlocked it, and they all went
+in.
+
+They saw before them the walls of an immense ruin. The wall was of a
+curved form, and there were vast openings in it, like arches, below. The
+man in uniform, who was the custodian, as they call him, of the ruin,
+led the way along a path into one of these arches, and thence ascended a
+massive flight of old stone steps, to a place which commanded a view of
+the interior.
+
+They saw that the amphitheatre was of an oval form, and was built with
+seats rising one above another, all around, to a great height. The seats
+were all of stone, and at regular intervals between them were flights of
+steps for going up and down. In the centre, below, was a large level
+space, called the _arena_. All around the arena, and under the seats,
+were immense galleries or passage ways among the arches, some of which
+were below the level of the ground. Some of these galleries were for the
+spectators to use in passing from one part of the building to another,
+and others were used for the dens and cages of the wild beasts that were
+kept there to fight in the arena, for the amusement of the people.
+
+The guide led the way through all these places, and it was not until
+after walking about through them for some time that Mrs. Gray and the
+children obtained a full conception of the magnitude of the structure.
+The guide told them that it contained room for forty thousand people.
+
+"What a dreadful place it must have been!" said Rosie, as she followed
+the guide round through the subterranean chambers.
+
+"They used to hoist the cages that contained the wild beasts up through
+these openings," said the guide, pointing to some large circular
+openings in the masonry above, "and then open the gates, and let them
+out into the arena. The cages were so contrived that when the keeper
+opened the door to let the beast out, by the same motion he shut himself
+in, so as to be safe out of his way. He then, afterwards, got out
+behind, by another door."
+
+There was a very wide and deep canal open in the centre of the arena,
+with a communication for water connected with a vast reservoir a little
+way off. By means of this canal the whole of the arena could be flooded
+with water, so as to form a little lake for naval battles. The guide
+took the party down to the bottom of this canal, and showed them a
+large, circular opening in the masonry below, for drawing off water.
+This opening connected with a conduit, which ran off towards the sea.
+
+The spectacles which were exhibited by the ancients in such buildings as
+these were real combats of beasts with one another, or of beasts with
+men, and sometimes of men with one another. At first, the men who were
+compelled to maintain these combats were convicts, who were condemned to
+them as a punishment for their crimes. The beasts were lions, tigers,
+and other ferocious animals that were caught in the forests in Africa,
+or in other remote parts of the Roman empire, and brought to the great
+cities for this special purpose.
+
+A great many of the early Christians were compelled to meet these beasts
+in such conflicts, in the persecutions which they endured. The rulers of
+the country chose to consider them as criminals for being believers in
+Jesus, and so doomed them to this dreadful punishment.
+
+It was shocking to think of the scenes that had probably been enacted in
+this very amphitheatre; and Mrs. Gray and Rosie, after they had examined
+it in every part, were not sorry to go away.
+
+Rollo next directed the coachman to drive to the Temple of Serapis. The
+curiosity of the Temple of Serapis, which stands on the shore, just at
+the entrance of the town, is, that it is partly under water. It seems
+that from the effects of earthquakes, or from some other similar agency,
+the whole coast in this region rises and falls in the course of ages,
+and that at the present time it is several feet lower than it was in the
+days of the Romans. The consequence is, that many structures which were
+originally built upon the land, are now partly or wholly submerged in
+the sea. In passing along the coast in a boat, you can see a great many
+of these ruins in the water. There is one, however, which can be seen
+without going out in a boat at all. It is a temple called the _Temple of
+Serapis_.
+
+It stands on the margin of the shore, and the floor of it is now about a
+foot or two under water. This floor is very extensive, and a great many
+columns and other superstructures are still standing upon it, the whole
+of which can be easily explored by the visitor, by means of a raised
+stone pathway, made by the government, which traverses it in all
+directions. It is a very curious place indeed.
+
+Rollo and his party were admitted to the ruin through a gate, kept as
+usual by the custodian appointed by the government; and then they walked
+all over the ruin upon the raised stone path. They looked down through
+the water, and saw the marble floor of the temple below, and the columns
+rising up from it with their bases submerged. There is proof that at one
+time these ruins were fifteen or twenty feet lower than they are now,
+and that they have since come up again. The next earthquake may depress
+the whole coast again, in which case the floor of the temple will be
+once more deep under water; or it may raise it so as to bring the ruins
+all up once more, high and dry.
+
+Rollo wished very much to take a boat, and go out and see the ruins that
+lie under water along the coast; but he knew very well that Mrs. Gray
+would not like to go out in a boat, nor to have Rosie go, at least
+unless Mr. George were with them, and so he did not propose the plan.
+He, however, only reserved it for the time when he should come again to
+see the ruins, in company with his uncle.
+
+After concluding the visit to the Temple of Serapis, Rollo paid the boy
+whom he had taken for the guide when he first arrived at Pozzuoli, and
+then the party drove home.
+
+Mrs. Gray insisted on paying the whole expense of this excursion; and
+she was so much pleased with Rollo's management of it, that she said she
+wished that he would plan another excursion as soon as possible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE ORANGE GARDENS.
+
+
+The last excursion which Rollo made in the environs of Naples, was to a
+beautiful valley which was situated some miles to the south of the city,
+on the shores of the bay, which was full of groves of lemons and
+oranges. The place was called _Sorrento_. The town of Sorrento and its
+environs occupy a broad plain, which is elevated somewhat from the sea,
+and yet, being surrounded, on all sides towards the land, with ranges of
+very elevated land, it is really a valley. The reason why the oranges
+and lemons grow so well there is, partly because the soil is very rich,
+and partly because the valley opens towards the south, and is sheltered
+by the mountains towards the north, and this makes the climate of the
+spot very warm.
+
+Rollo himself formed the plan of this excursion. One evening his uncle
+came home from the museum looking very tired. He laid his note book upon
+the table, threw himself down upon the sofa, and said,--
+
+"Rollo, I am tired out."
+
+"What makes you so tired?" asked Rollo.
+
+"Hard work in the museum," said Mr. George; "but I have got through.
+To-morrow I mean to rest, and I wish you would take me off to-morrow,
+somewhere on an excursion. I don't care where it is, provided I have
+nothing to think or to say about it. I don't want even to know where I
+am going."
+
+"Shall I invite Mrs. Gray and Rosie to go too?" asked Rollo.
+
+"I don't care whether you do or not," said Mr. George. "Do as you
+please, provided I have nothing to say about it. Make all the
+arrangements, and call me to-morrow morning when you are ready."
+
+Accordingly, the next morning, about half an hour after breakfast, Rollo
+went into Mr. George's room, and told him that he was ready. So Mr.
+George followed Rollo down stairs. He found a carriage at the door, with
+Mrs. Gray and Rosie sitting in it. Josie was there, too, on the box with
+the driver.
+
+Mr. George got in, and Rollo directed the coachman to go on.
+
+The coachman drove for half an hour through the busiest part of the
+city, and at length stopped at the railway station.
+
+"Now, uncle George," said Rollo, "you must go into the waiting room with
+Mrs. Gray and Rosie, while I get the tickets."
+
+Rollo bought tickets for a place called _Castellamare_, which is a
+romantic town built on the shore of the bay at the foot of Vesuvius. It
+is famous, among other things, for the hot springs of medicinal water
+which come up out of the ground there, I suppose from under the volcano,
+or from so near the neighborhood of it that the water is heated by the
+volcanic fires. Castellamare is a great naval station for the government
+of the country, and for this reason, as well as on account of the
+springs, they have made a railroad to it from Naples.
+
+On coming out into the street at the station at Castellamare, Rollo and
+his party were greeted by a sudden burst of clamor from a crowd of
+coachmen and guides, all wanting to be hired.
+
+"Pay no attention to all these people, uncle George," said Rollo, "but
+follow me."
+
+So saying, Rollo pushed forward, followed by his party, until he reached
+a place where he could see the carriages. There were a great number of
+them. They were harnessed with three horses to each. They were there to
+take travellers on excursions along the coast, and among the neighboring
+mountains. They were ready to go to Sorrento, or to Paestum, or to
+Amalfi, or wherever any travellers wished to go.
+
+Rollo paid no attention to the clamor, but quietly surveyed the
+carriages which were standing in the street before him. The coachmen of
+some of them were on the sidewalk; those of others stood up in their
+carriages, shouting all the time to Rollo, and cracking their whips.
+Rollo at last selected the one which he thought would be best for the
+purpose, and went quietly to it. Partly by signs, and partly by
+disconnected words in Italian, he made a bargain with the man to take
+them to Sorrento and back; and then the carriage drove up to the
+sidewalk, and all the party got in. Rollo also selected a guide. The
+guide mounted on the box with the coachman. Josie took a seat inside.
+
+The party enjoyed a magnificent ride along the coast for eight or ten
+miles. The road was excellent. It was built on the declivities of the
+mountains, which here crowd close upon the sea. It was very smooth and
+hard, and was finished with a sidewalk, and with avenues of trees,
+almost all the way. On one side it looked down upon the blue and
+beautiful bay, and on the other upon the mountains, which were almost
+every where terraced up to form vineyards and olive groves, and
+presented to view a perpetual succession of villas, convents, churches,
+summer houses, and gardens.
+
+At length they came in sight of the valley of Sorrento. It lay broadly
+expanded before them, full of groves of orange and lemon trees, among
+which were to be seen every where lofty walls of enclosure running in
+all directions, and roofs of houses, and villas, without number, rising
+among the trees. Towards the sea the ground terminated in a range of
+cliffs that were almost as smooth and perpendicular as a wall.
+
+The carriage gradually descended into this valley, and then went on
+across it. Rollo and his party, in thus riding along, had the lofty
+walls of the orange gardens on each side of the way, while here and
+there there appeared a house, a shop, a church, or a hotel. After
+traversing this region for nearly half an hour, the carriage stopped in
+the stable yard of an inn, and the party descended. The guide was going
+to show them the way to a garden where they could go in.
+
+They walked along some way, still between lofty walls, with branches of
+orange and lemon trees, full of fruit, seen every where above them,
+until at length the guide stopped before a massive gateway, where he
+knocked loud and long, by means of an ancient-looking iron knocker.
+Presently a man came down a sort of road, which led through the garden,
+and unlocking the gate, let the party in.
+
+The road led to a house which was in the centre of the garden. The man
+who opened the gate, however, knew very well that the visitors came, not
+to see the people in the house, but to gather and eat some oranges. So
+he led the way towards the part of the garden where the fruit was the
+most abundant and the sweetest. After a while he came to a place where
+there was a seat. The party took their places on this seat, while the
+guide brought them oranges from the neighboring trees.[E]
+
+[Footnote E: See Frontispiece.]
+
+He supplied them very abundantly. He brought them not only all that they
+wanted to eat, but gathered also a large number in clusters on the
+branches, for them to carry to the carriage and take home.
+
+The party remained in this garden for more than an hour, and then giving
+the gardener a small piece of money,--the guide told them how much it
+was proper to give,--they went away. They rambled about some time longer
+in Sorrento, and visited the brow of the cliffs which overhung the sea.
+
+At length they went back to the carriage, and set out on their return
+to Naples, with all the vacant spaces in the carriage filled with the
+clusters of oranges which they had gathered in the garden.
+
+The next day after this, Mr. George and Rollo closed their visit in
+Naples, and set out in the diligence for Rome.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
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+
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+JACOB ABBOTT. Beautifully illustrated. Rollo on the Atlantic--Rollo in
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+
+
+MY UNCLE TOBY'S LIBRARY.
+
+By FRANCIS FORRESTER, ESQ., consisting of twelve volumes, elegantly
+bound, and illustrated with upwards of SIXTY beautiful engravings. Each
+book is printed in large and splendid type, upon superior paper. Price
+per vol. 25 cts.
+
+
+THE SUMMER HOUSE STORIES.
+
+By the author of "Daisy," "Violet," &c. Elegantly illustrated by
+Billings. Six volumes. Price per vol. 63 cts.
+
+This series is designed to sketch attractively and simply the wonders of
+reptile and insect existences, the changes of trees, rocks, rivers,
+clouds, and winds. This is done by a family of children writing letters,
+both playful and serious, which are addressed to all children whom the
+books may reach.
+
+
+THE MARTIN AND NELLIE STORIES.
+
+By JOSEPHINE FRANKLIN. Twelve volumes, 16mo, cloth. Illustrated by
+Billings and others. Price per vol. 50 cts.
+
+The object of these stories is the inculcation, in a quiet, simple way,
+of the principles of good nature, kindness, and integrity among
+children. They consist of the usual pathetic and mirthful incidents that
+constitute boy and girl life.
+
+
+THE GLEN MORRIS STORIES.
+
+By FRANCIS FORRESTER, author of "My Uncle Toby's Library." Five vols.
+16mo, cloth. Beautifully illustrated. Price per vol. 63 cts.
+
+The purpose of the "Glen Morris Stories" is to sow the seed of pure,
+noble, manly character in the mind of our great nation's childhood. They
+exhibit the virtues and vices of childhood, not in prosy, unreadable
+precepts, but in a series of characters which move before the
+imagination, as living beings do before the senses.
+
+
+PICTURES FROM THE HISTORY OF THE SWISS.
+
+One volume, 16mo. Price 67 cts.
+
+A very instructive and entertaining Juvenile, designed for children from
+ten to fifteen years of age.
+
+
+PICTURES FROM THE HISTORY OF SPAIN.
+
+By the author of "Pictures from the History of the Swiss." A new volume
+just published. Price 67 cts.
+
+
+LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF WHITENOSE WOODCHUCK.
+
+One volume, 16mo. Price 38 cts.
+
+Intended especially for younger children, and illustrated with numerous
+engravings, by Billings.
+
+In addition to the above. B. & T. publish a great variety of Toy and
+Juvenile Books, suited to the wants of children of all ages.
+
+
+
+
+AN INTERESTING BOOK FOR SCHOLARS.
+
+The Boys have long desired such a Book.
+
+THE UNIVERSAL SPEAKER:
+
+ CONTAINING A COLLECTION OF SPEECHES, DIALOGUES, AND RECITATIONS, ADAPTED
+ TO THE USE OF SCHOOLS, ACADEMIES, AND SOCIAL CIRCLES.
+
+Edited by N. A. Calkins and W. T. Adams.
+
+The excellences of this work consist, in part, of its entire
+originality, of its more than usual adaptation to the wants of our High
+Schools and Academies, and of the systematic arrangement of its
+selections for declamation and for elocutionary practice. Those in Part
+Second were prepared by Prof. WM. RUSSELL, the eminent elocutionist,
+expressly for this work. The publishers feel assured that in presenting
+this work to Teachers and Scholars, they are offering them no revision
+of old matter with which they have long been familiar, but an original
+work, full of new, interesting, and instructive pieces, for the varied
+purposes for which it is designed.
+
+In 1 vol. 12mo. Price $1.
+
+The instructions in declamation are so complete and accompanied by such
+ample illustrations relative to position and gestures of the student,
+that the "Universal Speaker" needs only to be seen to become what its
+name indicates--universal.--Rochester Repository.
+
+The pieces are judiciously selected, and the book is very attractive in
+its appearance.--Connecticut School Journal.
+
+We find, upon close inspection, that the work contains much fresh
+matter, which will be acceptable to schools and students, particularly
+in the department of dialogues of which there is a great dearth of
+really good and FIT matter in most speakers.--United States Journal.
+
+They are all school-like, the dialogues being illustrative of scenes in
+common life, including some first-rate conversations pertinent to
+school-room duties and trials. The speeches are brief and energetic. It
+will meet with favor.--R. I. Schoolmaster.
+
+The selection has been made with a great deal of foresight and taste, by
+men who are highly esteemed as elocutionists, writers, or teachers. The
+notation, the directions and cuts appended to the pieces, will be found
+useful to those who use them.--Mass. Teacher.
+
+Looking it over hastily, we notice many admirable selections from the
+best authors, and as the book is entirely fresh, the matter never having
+appeared in previous readers or speakers, it cannot fail to be a welcome
+addition to the books of its class.--Springfield Republican.
+
+In this they have succeeded, and have also been fortunate in the
+selection. The book contains a larger number of dialogues than any we
+have seen, and they are mostly relative to school children and school
+affairs.--Penn. School Journal.
+
+
+
+
+INSTRUCTION AND AMUSEMENT.
+
+ PICTURES
+ FROM THE
+ HISTORY OF THE SWISS.
+
+In 1 vol. 16mo. 262 pages. Price 75 cents.
+
+WITH CHARACTERISTIC ILLUSTRATIONS,
+
+DESIGNED BY HAMMETT BILLINGS.
+
+It is not generally known that the early history of the Swiss abounds in
+the most thrilling and interesting stories, of which that of Wm. Tell
+shooting the apple from the head of his son, by order of the tyrant
+Gessler, so familiar to every child, is but a specimen. The present
+volume, while it introduces the youthful reader to many of the scenes
+through which the brave Swiss passed in recovering their liberty, also
+narrates many stories of peculiar interest and romance, every way equal
+to that of Tell. Among these we may name,
+
+ The Thievish Raven, and the Mischief he caused.
+ How the Wives and Daughters of Zurich saved the City.
+ How the City of Lucerne was saved by a Boy.
+ The Baker's Apprentice.
+ How a Wooden Figure raised Troops in the Valois.
+ Little Roza's Offering.
+ A Little Theft, and what happened in consequence.
+ The Angel of the Camp.
+
+With twenty-one other similar stories.
+
+
+
+
+A NEW SERIES OF JUVENILES.
+
+
+THE SUMMER-HOUSE SERIES.
+
+BY THE AUTHOR Of "VIOLET," "DAISY," ETC.
+
+The first volume of what the publishers sincerely believe will be the
+most popular series of Juvenile Books yet issued, is now ready, entitled
+
+
+OUR SUMMER-HOUSE, AND WHAT WAS SAID AND DONE IN IT.
+
+In 1 vol. 16mo. Price 62 cents.
+
+Handsomely Illustrated by HAMMETT BILLINGS.
+
+From the author's Preface:--
+
+"The Summer-House Series of children's books, of which the present
+volume is the first, is an attempt to sketch attractively and simply the
+wonders of reptile and insect existence, the changes of trees, rocks,
+rivers, clouds and winds.
+
+"To this end a family of intelligent children, of various ages,
+collected in a garden summer-house, are supposed to write letters and
+stories, sometimes playful, sometimes serious, addressing them to all
+children whom the books may reach.
+
+"The author has hoped, by thus awakening the quick imagination and ready
+sympathies of the young, to lead them to use their own eyes, and hearts,
+and hands, in that plentiful harvest-field of life, where 'the reapers
+indeed are few.'"
+
+Among the stories in the present volume are the following:--
+
+Bessie's Garden.
+
+One of the most touching and affecting stories we have read for many a
+day.
+
+The Lancers.
+
+A most humorous story, with a never-to-be-forgotten moral, inculcating
+contentment.
+
+The Working Fairies.
+
+In this story Industry is held up for attainment, and Idleness receives
+a severe rebuke. The style and language, though perfectly intelligible
+to children, are worthy of a Beecher.
+
+The Princess.
+
+A story of wrong and suffering.
+
+Little Red-Head.
+
+A true story of a bird.
+
+The Little Preacher.
+
+A sweet story, introducing bird and insect life, and conveying more
+truth and instruction to children, than can be found in a dozen ordinary
+sermons.
+
+ TAGGARD & THOMPSON, Publishers,
+ 29 CORNHILL, BOSTON.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Rollo in Naples, by Jacob Abbott
+
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