POMPEII.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3090, 13 January 1879, Page 4

POMPEII.

It was wonderful to wander over the streets of of this bured city, and to go into the shops and see bow similar were th« processes of trade to what they are now. The loates in the bakers' shops, for instance, were made just in the form now prevalent in Italy. We were in a great variety of shops. Into private houses, also, did we go, and saw in them much indicative of the habits of the people in that bygone age two thousand years ago. One thing also was evident. It had been a city of consummate iniquity. There were ample indications of this, and I have no doubt that, as Sodom and Gomorrah of old were destroyed by fire from heaven, so this city was destroyed, on account of its sins, by an irruption of the internal fires of the earth, perhaps of hell itself. How terrible to think of a whole city ushered in a moment unprepared into the eternal world! Among other things we saw was a petrified man, of which I have brought a photograph. Awful to think of a man, in the midst of the commission of iniquity, being turned into a stone! We naturally here think of Lot's wife who "looked back, and became a pillar of salt. Besides places for the exhibition of brutal sport, similar to what were in ancient Borne, we were shewn the theatres, which were in great style apparently, and of enormous size. Other indications shewed how given up they must have been to vice. And yet there were indications of civilisation. Their baths, like those we had seen at Borne, indicated progress in this respect. We saw some parts in the process of being excavated,—for the work is going on continually. Four hours were little enough time to go over this world of a place.— [Burnett's " Italian Experiences."]