Pompeii was rediscovered in 1748, by Don Rocca Alcubura, Spanish Colonel of Engineers. "Nearly seventeen centuries had rolled away when it was disinterred from its silent tomb, all vivid with undimmed hues--its walls fresh as if painted yesterday; scarcely a hue faded on the rich mosaic of its floors. In its forum the half-finished columns as left by the workman's hands, in its gardens the sacrificial tripod, in its halls the chest of treasure, in its baths the strigil, in its theatres the counter of admission, in its saloons the furniture and the lamp, in its triclinia the fragments of the last feast, in its cubicula the perfumes and the rouge of faded beauty--and everywhere the bones and skeletons of those who once moved the springs of that minute yet gorgeous machine of luxury and of life." The process of disentombment was not proceeded with very rapidly at first; it lingered on, in not too skilful hands, till Garibaldi appointed Alexandre Dumas as superintendent of the work in 1860. This, however, did not improve matters; the great novelist lived at Naples in first-rate style on the liberal income allowed him, and after one visit to the scene of operation, left the work to take care of itself. All was changed, however, under the _régime_ of Signor Florelli, who united the most enthusiastic interest in the work to eminent skill and unwearied patience. Since he undertook the management, the excavations have been made on a scale, and with a care, that will soon exhaust whatever objects still remain buried under the ashes.
Our guide first took us into the Museum, where we saw under glass cases some of the Pompeiian corpses, so wonderfully preserved by the plaster of Paris process, described in our visit to the Museum at Naples; also many other most interesting mementoes of the buried city, too numerous to mention. From thence we roamed out into the deserted streets:
"I stood within the city disinterred; And heard the autumnal leaves like light footfalls Of spirits passing through the streets; and heard The Mountain's slumberous voice at intervals Thrill through those roofless walls."