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There are, indeed, streets which are longer, for this extends only two-thirds of a mile, but hardly any which are broader, for it is 66 yards across. Between its alternate carriage-roads and foot-walks four double rows of limes and chestnuts introduce a refreshing breath of open country right into the bosom of the great town of stone, with its straight streets and heavy, grey square houses.
There was so little of Herculaneum: only a few hundred yards square are exhumed, and we counted the houses easily on the fingers of one hand, leaving the thumb to stand for the few rods of street that, with its flagging of lava and narrow border of foot-walks, lay between; and though the custodian, apparently moved at our dejection, said that the excavation was to be resumed the very next week, the assurance did little to restore our cheerfulness.
At that time the streets of the town were eight or ten inches under water, and foot passengers passed from place to place on raised foot-walks. July is at the height of the wet season, on the Isthmus. At intervals the rain would pour down in streams, followed in not many minutes by a blazing, tropical summer's sun. These alternate changes, from rain to sunshine, were continuous in the afternoons.
And, finally, it results in such a confusion between foot-walks and beds such a mixture of earth and gravel, and thrown-down tools that anyone unused to the symptoms of the case, might imagine that the door of the pigsty in the yard had been left open, and that its inhabitant had been performing sundry uncouth gambols with his nose in the little ones' gardens.
Here, by means of the Shah's interpreter, I am introduced to Nasr-i-Mulk, the Persian foreign minister, a kindly-faced yet business-looking old gentleman, at whose request I mount and ride with some difficulty around the confined and quite unsuitable foot-walks of the garden; a crowd of officials and farrashes look on in unconcealed wonder and delight.
The stones which form the pavement are uneven and much worn, the foot-walks on each side are raised very high, because in wet weather these streets were mere torrents and the water rushed down them. Here and there are stepping-stones, to enable people to cross from one side to the other.
At that time the streets of the town were eight or ten inches under water, and foot passengers passed from place to place on raised foot-walks. July is at the height of the wet season, on the Isthmus. At intervals the rain would pour down in streams, followed in not many minutes by a blazing, tropical summer's sun. These alternate changes, from rain to sunshine, were continuous in the afternoons.
At that time the streets of the town were eight or ten inches under water, and foot passengers passed from place to place on raised foot-walks. July is at the height of the wet season, on the Isthmus. At intervals the rain would pour down in streams, followed in not many minutes by a blazing, tropical summer's sun. These alternate changes, from rain to sunshine, were continuous in the afternoons.
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