St. Chiara, a fine large church, offers some fine monuments and oil-paintings.

Among the excursions in the neighbourhood of Naples, that to Puzzoli is certainly the most interesting.  After passing through the great grotto, we reach the ancient and rather important town of Puzzoli, with 8000 inhabitants.  Cicero called this place a little Rome.  In the centre of the town stands the church of St. Proculus, which was converted from a heathen into a Christian temple, and is surrounded by fine-looking Corinthian pillars.

Remarkable beyond all else is the ruined temple of Seropis.  Almost the entire magnitude and arrangement of this magnificent building can yet be discerned.  A few of the pillars that once supported the cupola are still erect, and several of the cells, which surrounded the temple and were once used as baths, can still be seen.  Every thing here is of fine white marble.  The greater portion of the ruin was dismantled, to be used in the construction of the royal villa of Caserta.

The harbour of Puzzoli is related to have been the finest in Italy.  From this place Caligula had a bridge erected to Baiae, about 4000 paces in length.  He undertook this gigantic work in consequence of a prophecy that was made to him, that he would no more become emperor than he could ride to Baiae on horseback.  This prophecy he confuted, and became emperor.  Of the amphitheatre and the colosseum not a trace remains.  A little chapel now occupies the site on which they stood; tradition asserts that it is built on the very spot where St. Januarius was thrown to the bears.

Not far from this chapel we are shewn the labyrinth of Daedalus; several of its winding walks still exist, through which it would be difficult to find the way without a cicerone.

We ascended the hill immediately beyond the city, on which some remains of Cicero’s villa are yet to be seen:  here we enjoyed a splendid prospect.

In this region we continually wander among ruins, and see every where around us the relics of the past.  Thus a short walk brought us from Cicero’s villa to the ruins of three temples—­those of Diana, Venus, and Mercury.  Of the first, one side and a few little cells, called the “baths of Venus,” alone remain.  Part of Venus’s temple stands in the rotunda.  It was built on acoustic principles, so that any one who puts his ear to a certain part of the wall can hear what is whispered at the opposite extremity.  A few fragments of the rotunda were the only trace left of the temple of Diana.

The vapour baths of Nero, hewn out of the rock, consist of several passages, into which it is impossible to penetrate far on account of the heat.  A boy ran to the spring and brought us some boiling water; he returned from his expedition fiery red in the face, and covered with perspiration.  These poor lads are accustomed to remain at the spring until they have succeeded in boiling some eggs; but I would not allow any such cruelty, and did not even wish them to fetch me the water, but Herr Brettschneider would have it so in spite of me.