In Herculaneum,
where the flood was of a different and a heavier kind, it rolled
in, like a sea. Imagine a deluge of water turned to marble, at its
height--and that is what is called 'the lava' here.
Some workmen were digging the gloomy well on the brink of which we
now stand, looking down, when they came on some of the stone
benches of the theatre--those steps (for such they seem) at the
bottom of the excavation--and found the buried city of Herculaneum.
Presently going down, with lighted torches, we are perplexed by
great walls of monstrous thickness, rising up between the benches,
shutting out the stage, obtruding their shapeless forms in absurd
places, confusing the whole plan, and making it a disordered dream.
We cannot, at first, believe, or picture to ourselves, that THIS
came rolling in, and drowned the city; and that all that is not
here, has been cut away, by the axe, like solid stone. But this
perceived and understood, the horror and oppression of its presence
are indescribable.
Many of the paintings on the walls in the roofless chambers of both
cities, or carefully removed to the museum at Naples, are as fresh
and plain, as if they had been executed yesterday.
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