here with their legs in a machine similar to our stocks.  The scribbling and caricatures on the walls of this barrack are perfectly visible and legible.  When one wanders thro’ the streets of this singularly interesting city, one is tempted to think that the inhabitants have just walked out.  What a dreadful lingering death must have befallen these inhabitants who could not escape from Pompeii at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius which covered it with ashes.  The air could only be exhausted by degrees, so that a prolonged suffocation or a death by hunger must have been their lot.

Four skeletons were found upright in the streets, having in their hands boxes containing jewellery and things of value, as if in the act of endeavouring to make their escape:  these must soon have perished, but the skeleton of a woman found in one of the rooms of the houses close to a bath shews that her death must have been one of prolonged suffering.

What a fine subject Pompeii would furnish for the pen of a Byron!  As I have before remarked, all the valuables and utensils of all sorts found here have been removed to Portici; it is a great pity that everything could not be left in Pompeii in the exact situation in which it was found on its first discovery at the excavation.  What a light it would have thrown (which no description can give) on the melancholy catastrophe as well as on the private life and manners of the ancients!  But if they had been left here, they would, even tho’ a guard of soldiers were stationed here to protect them, have been by degrees all stolen.

There were some magnificent tombs just outside the gates which must have been no small ornament to the city.

We returned to Resina to dinner at six o’clock.

We had made an arrangement with one of the guides of Vesuvius called Salvatore that he should be ready for us at Resina at seven o’clock with a mule and driver for each of us to ascend the mountain, and we found him very punctual at the door of the inn at that hour.  The terms of the journey were as follows.  One scudo for Salvatore and one scudo for each mule and driver for which they were to forward us to the mountain, remain the whole night and reconduct us to Resina the following morning.  The object in ascending at night and remaining until morning is to combine the night view of the eruption with the visit (if possible) to the crater, which cannot with safety be undertaken by night, and to enjoy likewise the noble view at sunrise of the whole bay and city of Naples and the adjacent islands.  We started therefore at a quarter past seven and arrived at half past nine at a small house and chapel, called the hermitage of Vesuvius, which is generally considered as half-way up the mountain.  In this house dwells an old ecclesiastic who receives travellers and furnishes them with a couch and frugal repast.  We dismounted here and our worthy host provided us with some mortadella