We saw, among the old buildings of the city, an ancient palace called the Vicaria, which is changed into a prison.  Then a new palace was honoured with royal residence instead of the old dungeon.  I saw also a fine arch called the Capuan gate, formerly one of the city towers, and a very pretty one.  We advanced to see the ruins of a palace said to be a habitation of Queen Joan, and where she put her lovers to death chiefly by potions, thence into a well, smothering them, etc., and other little tenderly trifling matters of gallantry.

FOOTNOTES: 

[518] Probably Pauline; married to Hon. Augustus Craven, and author of Recit d’une Soeur.

[519] Daughter of Colonel Hugh Duncan Baillie, of Tarradale and Redcastle.

MARCH.

March.—­Embarked on an excursion to Paestum, with Sir William Gell and Mr. Laing-Meason, in order to see the fine ruins.  We went out by Pompeii, which we had visited before, and which fully maintains its character as one of the most striking pieces of antiquity, where the furniture treasure and household are preserved in the excavated houses, just as found by the labourers appointed by Government.  The inside of the apartments is adorned with curious paintings, if I may call them such, in mosaic.  A meeting between Darius and Alexander is remarkably fine.[520] A street, called the street of Tombs, reaches a considerable way out of the city, having been flanked by tombs on each side as the law directed.  The entrance into the town affords an interesting picture of the private life of the Romans.  We came next to the vestiges of Herculaneum, which is destroyed like Pompeii but by the lava or molten stone, which cannot be removed, whereas the tufa or volcanic ashes can be with ease removed from Pompeii, which it has filled up lightly.  After having refreshed in a cottage in the desolate town, we proceed on our journey eastward, flanked by one set of heights stretching from Vesuvius, and forming a prolongation of that famous mountain.  Another chain of mountains seems to intersect our course in an opposite direction and descends upon the town of Castellamare.  Different from the range of heights which is prolonged from Vesuvius, this second, which runs to Castellamare, is entirely composed of granite, and, as is always the case with mountains of this formation, betrays no trace of volcanic agency.  Its range was indeed broken and split up into specimens of rocks of most romantic appearance and great variety, displaying granite rock as the principal part of its composition.  The country on which these hills border is remarkable for its powers of vegetation, and produces vast groves of vine, elm, chestnut, and similar trees, which grow when stuck in by cuttings.  The vines produce Lacryma Christi in great quantities—­not a bad wine, though the stranger requires to be used to it.  The sea-shore of the Bay of Naples forms the boundary on the right of the country through which our journey lies, and we continue to approach to the granite chain of eminences which stretch before us, as if to bar our passage.