I could conjure
up an illusion there--the biggest, most vivid illusion I have been
privileged to harbor since I was a small boy. It was worth spending
four days in Naples for the sake of spending half a day in Pompeii;
and if you know Naples you will readily understand what a high
compliment that is for Pompeii.
To reach Pompeii from Naples we followed a somewhat roundabout
route; and that trip was distinctly worth while too. It provided
a most pleasing foretaste of what was to come. Once we had cleared
the packed and festering suburbs, we went flanking across a terminal
vertebra of the mountain range that sprawls lengthwise of the land
of Italy, like a great spiny-backed crocodile sunning itself, with
its tail in the Tyrrhenian Sea and its snout in the Piedmonts; and
when we had done this we came out on a highway that skirted the bay.
There were gaps in the hills, through which we caught glimpses of
the city, lying miles away in its natural amphitheater; and at
that distance we could revel in its picturesqueness and forget its
bouquet of weird stenches. We could even forget that the automobile
we had hired for the excursion had one foot in the grave and several
of its most important vital organs in the repair shop. I reckon
that was the first automobile built. No; I take that back. It
never was a first--it must have been a second to start with.
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