"The discovery of this relic of antiquity would necessarily excite considerable interest, had it been made in England. The Nine Days' Wonder has begun to subside here since the owner of the field gained the cause against the farmer, and succeeded in turning him out. He—the Landlord—and the Town talk of an adequate protection by and by; but in the meantime there have been three or four days of heavy rain, and as they have neglected to do what the first managers of the place did before them, of covering up the mosaic nightly with earth and latterly with straw, to protect it from injury, I am sorry to say, it has already suffered considerable damage, and the work of the spoiler is likely to go on till it is totally destroyed; for, already, the effect of ponding back the water on the uneven parts of the floors is to have softened the mortar, or bed in which the coloured cubes are embedded, that the bits come out with the greatest ease, and there are ever at hand those that are ready to carry them off. We are quite sure that the common people believe them to be composed of gold, or else that they are precious stones; for they take them whenever they can, and many have offered them for sale to gentlemen they have met in the road. Neptune was quite perfect when first discovered; by degrees he lost an eye, and then a cheek, and finally, I believe half his face has disappeared. This, by degrees, has been the fate of several of the fish and reptiles at the bottom of the Tank or Impluvium. It has disheartened Sabine a good deal to see the gradual injury it is sustaining, and I must say disturbed me considerably. It seemed such a lamentable proof of want of taste and appreciation of works of art, which in Italy, and in England too, would be respected and preserved."
I may add that there is, on the opposite side of the river, another buried Villa with mosaic pavements, but the earth there is so shallow that the mosaic is in a bad condition. I made an attempt to unearth it, but abandoned the task, owing to the exorbitant demands made by the owner of the land.
My father brought us up to take a siesta of an hour after the midday meal. Owing to the intense heat in summer in the South of France, this was as grateful as it was necessary. But the obligation was extended to winter as well as summer, to England as well as the South of France. My father gave his reasons: "Dogs," said he, "when they have eaten, curl up for a snooze. After a
