The New Hampshire Gazette

The Campo Santo, the great Golgotha of Naples.—"It is situated on a rising ground behind the town, about a mile and a half from the gate. Within its walls are 365 caverns; one is opened every day for the reception of the dead, the great mass of whom, as soon as the rites of religion have been performed, are brought here for sepulture. There were fifteen cast in, while we were there; men, women, and children, without a rag to cover them; literally fulfilling the words of scripture: "As he came forth out of his mother's womb, naked shall he return, to go as he came!" I looked down into this frightful charnel-house, it was a shocking sight—a mass of blood and garbage, for many of the bodies had been opened at the hospitals. Cock-roaches and other reptiles were crawling about in all their glory. "We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots; that's the end!" We made the sexton of this dreary abode, who, by the way, had been employed in this daily work for eleven years, open the stone of the next day's grave, which had been sealed up for a year. The flesh was entirely gone; for in such a fermenting mass, the work of corruption must go on swimmingly; quick lime is added to hasten the process, and nothing seemed to remain, but a dry heap of bones and skulls. What must be the feelings of those, who can suffer the remains of a friend, a sister, a mother, or a wife, to be thus disposed of? Indifferent as I feel to the posthumous fate of my own remains, Heaven grant that I may at least rest and rot alone; and not be mixed up in so horrible a human hash as this! there were some women saying Ave Marias, within the square, for the departed souls of their friends; but our arrival took them from this pious work and set them upon some calculations, connected with us and our carriage, and the number of it, to direct them in the selection of lucky numbers in the lottery upon their return to Naples!"—Matthew's Diary of an Invalid.