254 AUSTRALIA AND HOMEWARD. 



has been written that one hardly feels like dwelling 

 at length upon it in a letter like this. However, as 

 excavations are still going on, there is some newness to 

 the theme at any date. Only quite recently the work- 

 men found a house in which a lady of wealth had evi- 

 dently dwelt. She had busied herself with gathering 

 together her silver plate for the purpose of bearing it 

 with her in her flight with others from the storm of 

 fire, but she was too late. Her treasures held her till 

 flight was impossible, and she was buried with hun- 

 dreds of her neighbors beneath the ruinous eruptions 

 of the volcano. 



These ruins reveal wealth, refinement, art, taste, in- 

 telligence, which impress the traveller with astonish- 

 ment. We were much surprised at the durability of 

 the colors used in painting. There are pictures on 

 the walls of Pompeian ruins which are just as bright 

 apparently as when first put on. They certainly had 

 a better art of making durable pictures than is known 

 in modern times. But, alas for them ! The very dura- 

 bility of their pictures reveals to us their voluptuous 

 and adulterous wickedness, by reason of which they 

 were destroyed like the wretched dwellers in Sodorn 

 and Gomorrah. There are to this day pictures so 

 obscene, and yet so legible, that the rooms containing 

 them are constantly locked, only to be opened by the 



