It Required Four Minutes' Walk To Reach The
Base Of The Other Cone And About Twelve To Ascend To Its
Apex; on arrival
at the brink, where we remained about two minutes, we had just sufficient
time to observe that
There was no deep hole or bottomless gouffre as we
expected, but that it formed a crater with a sort of slant and not
exceeding thirty feet in depth to the bottom, which looked exactly like a
lime-kiln, being of a dirty white appearance, and in continual agitation,
as it were of limestones boiling; so that a person descending to the bottom
of this crater would probably be scorched to death or suffocated in a few
minutes, but would infallibly be ejected and thrown into the air at the
first eruption. I mean by this that he would not disappear or fall into a
bottomless pit (as I should have supposed before I viewed the crater), but
that his friends would be sure of finding his body either yet living or
dead, outside the brink of the crater, within the radius made by the
erupted stones and ashes.
Our guide now begged us for God's sake to descend, as an eruption might be
expected every minute. We accordingly glided down the exterior surface of
the cone among the ashes, on our breech, for it is impossible to descend in
any other way and in a few seconds we reached its base. Finding ourselves
on a little level ground we began to run or rather wade thro' the ashes in
order to get out of reach of the eruption, but we had not gone thirty yards
when one took place. The stones clattered down with a frightful noise and
we received a shower of ashes on our heads, the dust of which got into our
eyes and nearly blinded us. On reaching the brink of the old crater we
stopped half an hour to enjoy the fine view of Parthenope in all her glory
at sunrise. We then descended rapidly, sometimes plunging down the ashes on
our feet and sometimes gliding on our breech till we arrived at the place
where we had descended from our mules, and this distance, which required
one hour to ascend, cost us in its descent not more than seven minutes.
We then walked to the hermitage in about an hour and a quarter, and arrived
there with no other accident than having our shoes and stockings totally
spoiled, our feet a little singed, the hands of Mr. R.D. severely burned
and both begrimed with ashes like blacksmiths. The ecclesiastic gave us a
breakfast of coffee and eggs and a glass of Maraschino, and we gave him two
scudi each. Before we departed he presented to us his Album, which he
usually does to all travellers, inviting them to write something. I took up
the pen and feeling a little inspiration wrote the following lines:
Anch'io salito son sul gran Vesuvio,
Mentre cadsa di cineri un diluvio;
Questo cammin mi piace d'aver fatto,
Ma plu mi piace il ritornare intatto.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 180 of 291
Words from 94265 to 94780
of 151859
