"The houses in general are built with small red bricks, or with volcanic matter from Vesuvius, and are only one or two stories high. The marble counters remain in many of the stores, and the numbers, names of the occupiers, and their occupations, still appear in red letters on the outside. The names of Julius, Marius, Lucius, and many others, only familiar to us through the medium of our classic studies, and fraught with heroic ideas, we here see associated with the retailing of oil, olives, bread, apothecaries' wares, and nearly all the various articles usually found in the trading part of Italian cities even at the present day. All the trades, followed in these various edifices, were likewise distinctly marked by the utensils found in them; but the greater part of these, as discovered, were removed for their better preservation to the great Museum at Naples; a measure perhaps indispensable, but which detracts in some degree from the local interest. We see, however, in the magazine of the oil merchant, his jars in perfect order, in the bakehouse are the hand mills in their original places, and of a description which exactly tallies with those alluded to in holy writ; the ovens scarcely want repairs; where a sculptor worked, there we find his marbles and his productions, in various states of forwardness, just as he left them.
"The mansions of the higher classes are planned to suit the delicious climate in which they are situated, and are finished with great taste. They generally have an open court in the centre, in which is a fountain. The floors are of mosaic. The walls and ceilings are beautifully painted or stuccoed and statues, tripods, and other works of art, embellished the galleries and apartments. The kitchens do not appear to have been neglected by the artists who decorated the buildings, and although the painting is of a coarser description than in other parts of the edifices, the designs are in perfect keeping with the plan. Trussed fowls, hams, festoons of sausages, together with the representations of some of the more common culinary utensils, among which I noticed the gridiron, still adorn the walls. In some of the cellars skeletons were found, supposed to be those of the inmates who had taken refuge from the shower of ashes, and had there found their graves, while the bulk of their fellow citizens escaped. In one vault, the remains of sixteen human beings were discovered, and from the circumstance of some valuable rings and a quantity of money being found with the bones, it is concluded that the master of the house was among the sufferers. In this vault or cellar I saw a number of earthen jars, called Amphoræ, placed against the wall. These, which once held the purple juice, perhaps the produce of favorite vintages, were now filled to the brim with ashes. Many of the public edifices are large, and have been magnificent. The amphitheatre, which is oval, upon the plan of that at Verona, would contain above ten thousand spectators. This majestic edifice was disentombed by the French, to whose taste and activity, during their rule in Italy, particularly in the district of Naples, every lover of the arts stands indebted. I had the good fortune to be present at the clearing of a part of the arena of this colossal erection, and witnessed the disclosure of paintings which had not seen the light for above seventeen hundred years. They were executed in what is termed _fresco_, a process of coloring on wet plaster, but which, after it becomes hard, almost defies the effects of time. The subjects of those I allude to were nymphs, and the coloring of the draperies, in some instances, was as fresh as if just applied.