ITALY, as the reader will remember, is in the shape of a boot, and you find Mt. Vesuvius on the instep of that boot.

Leaving Naples by train we skirt along the beautiful bay by the same name and step off, as in the last chapter, at Pompeii, some fifteen miles from the starting point. Mt. Vesuvius now lifts its majestic form before us, and I am sure that if we should live to be as old as Methuselah, we can never forget its awful, yet picturesque and beautiful appearance.

Take if you please a deep soup plate and turn it bottom upwards on your table. Next get a tea-cup and turn that bottom upwards on the center of the plate. Now imagine the table to be a broad, fertile field covered with vines. Imagine the plate to be fifteen miles in circumference, and that it swells from the plain and lifts itself up until the cup, rising sharp-pointed like a huge pyramid, reaches to the height of 4,200 feet. This is Mt. Vesuvius, and you must know that it is as black as charcoal and rough as a tree that has been a thousand times struck by lightning. It is hollow like a cup and is open at the top as the inverted cup would be if the bottom were out.

As I stand gazing at Vesuvius, it is slowly emitting a huge volume of white, sulphurous smoke or steam which rises straight like a mighty shaft of marble for a thousand feet above the crater, then gracefully curving, the column stretches itself across the glassy bay of Naples for ten miles or more until finally it joins itself with the fleecy clouds. What a picture it presents! There is the great city throbbing with life; the silvery bay flecked with white-winged and smoke-plumed vessels; there is the broad, fertile plain, covered with fruit-bearing vineyards, and dotted here and there with small, rude and dilapidated peasant villages; there are the black mountain and the white column of steam, clearly outlined against the rich blue, Italian sky. Such a scene, I am sure, could not fail to wake a song from the poet, or inspire the artist to put forth his best endeavors.

There are about 650 volcanoes in existence, but Dr. Hartwig says, “For the naturalist’s researches, for the traveler’s curiosity and the poet’s song, Etna and Vesuvius surpass in renown all other volcanic regions in the world.” Knowing that Vesuvius is so noted, I am anxious to observe the phenomena closely, and to do this I must cross the plain and ascend the mountain. We can not go alone and it is too far to walk. Securing our horses and a guide, we set out on the journey.

Johnson’s horse is named Maccaroni; mine has no name; he had one once, but has long ago worn it out. I am at a loss to know what to name him. I can not conscientiously call him Baalbek, for he is not a “magnificent” ruin. But I can with perfect propriety, and without a sacrifice of principle, call him Pompeii, “an ancient ruin.” He looks as if he might have been in the doomed city on that fatal day, and as if he has not yet recovered from the ill effects of that day’s experience. His teeth are out, his mane is gone, he has no tail. His backbone is so much in the shape of a razor blade, that it has split the saddle wide open, fore and aft. The two parts are roped together, and carelessly thrown across the skeleton. This protects me somewhat, and I would be moderately comfortable if the saddle did not hang too far to the starboard side. Albeit I have great respect for that horse—his age demands it. No horse can go higher than the foot of the cone—the cup. Here dismounting, I am at once accosted by a swarm of Italians who want to assist me up the cone. It takes four of these swarthy athletes to carry one pilgrim up. They put him in a “portantina,” a kind of chair made for the purpose. The four men, taking this chair on their shoulders, begin the ascent, stopping quite frequently to rest. Other assistants have straps or ropes, which they put around the pilgrim just below the arms; then two men, each holding one end of the rope, walk in front and thus draw their victim up. Many Italians earn a livelihood in this way. I do not avail myself of their proffered help—I can not bear to impose on good nature.

Yes, I go alone, but I frankly confess it is hard work. The ascent is very steep. In my schoolboy days I climbed many trees, tall, smooth bodied and limbless, after young squirrels, grapes and chestnuts. Since then I have climbed many mountains. I have climbed the Rocky Mountains. I have climbed mountains in Mexico, in Virginia, West Virginia, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Canada. I have climbed mountains in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales; in Germany and France, in Switzerland and Italy, in Austria and Hungary, in Servia and Roumania, in Bulgaria and Slavonia, in Greece, Russia and Asia Minor, in Palestine, Syria and Arabia. I have climbed the Pyramids of Egypt. But I have never climbed anything that wearied me as does the ascent of Vesuvius. It is like climbing a mountain of shot. I sink at each step half leg deep in charcoal and ashes. I frequently stumble and fall. It is uphill business. I am walking on snow and sniffing the mountain breeze, yet the perspiration rolls off of me like rain—a light shower of course.

By this time we come to where the footing is more firm and solid, but the way not less trying and difficult. There are many narrow and yawning crevices to cross, many deep openings to shun on the right and left—some of them large enough to swallow a good-sized house. Perchance it was one of these dark caverns wherein dwelt that lazy hag, with a fox and a slimy serpent as her sole companions—I mean that weird witch who cursed Glaucus and Ione and helped Arbaces, the Egyptian, to work out his diabolical purposes. This part of the cone is composed of black and hardened lava, hideously rough and jagged, porous as honeycomb. Here and there small jets of smoke and hot steam, some of them no larger than my thumb, others as large as my arm, or twice as large, can be seen spouting from the crevices and openings. We frequently stop and warm our feet at these “flues,” but the flames are so strongly impregnated with sulphur that we can not stand it long at a time. We are now within two hundred yards of the top. It looks dangerous to go farther, but our guide says we have only to follow him, and follow him we do. After scaling with great difficulty and some danger the steep and rocky sides, we reach the crater’s brink and look down into Vulcan’s Forge, into that deep and awful abyss from which clouds of sulphurous vapors are rising as from the gates of perdition. A strong wind blowing from the north drives the smoke and steam in the opposite direction. This enables us to see better and induces us to venture too near the edge. All at once the wind changes and suddenly we are enveloped in dense fumes of sulphur. To retreat in the dark is perilous—to remain long in this sulphur is death. I swallow some of the steam which is so strong with sulphur that it instantly scalds my throat and lungs. What can be done! Johnson and I have hold of each other’s hands. I fall to the ground pulling him with me. Thus by keeping our mouths close to the ground, we manage to get fresh air enough to keep from being suffocated. When the wind shifts and the smoke lifts, we lose no time in changing to a less dangerous place. Some time ago a German was unfortunate enough to fall into this fearful chasm. What an awful death! How thankful I am for God’s preserving care!

By this time night has come, and as we stand in darkness, looking down into this fearful abyss, we can see the lurid flames writhing and leaping, casting up great quantities of glowing brimstone and red-hot lava hundreds of feet into the air. The next moment the lava is falling around us in showers of living fire. The pieces are of all shapes and vary greatly in size. While some of them are no larger than a marble, others are large as a saucer—perchance as large as a plate.

Deep down below us we hear the boiling caldrons of lava grinding, gurgling, growling. Now we hear the report of big guns and little guns, of musketry and of cannon, as if the damned are bombarding each other with the artillery of hell! Report chases report through the subterranean caverns like deep thunder galloping after thunder. The angry flames continue to leap and crackle. Occasionally the whole crater, which looks like the veritable mouth of hell, glows with intense brilliancy and glitters and sparkles with ten thousand points of dazzling light. The volume of steam, or “the mighty column of wreaths and curling heaps of lighted vapor,” continue to pour forth with frightful rapidity. Every moment witnesses a new upheaval of red-hot lava and consequently a fresh shower of fire.

The guide now informs me (I did not know it before) that the night is far spent, and yet there are other things to see. Going round on the northeast side of the mountain and descending a few hundred yards from the top, we come to a stream of red-hot lava—an actual river of fire—bursting forth from the mountain side and flowing down into the valley. It looks like a stream of melted iron slowly winding its way adown the blackened mountain-side, bearing upon its heated bosom great quantities of glowing brimstone and red-hot rocks. Ever and anon the rocks in the stream dash against each other with such force as to break themselves to pieces, then follow a slight explosion and blaze. The angry flames like fiery fiends leap into the air and vanish. As one stands enveloped in the blackness of the night, contemplating this wonderful phenomenon—these flames, suddenly bursting and vanishing, chasing each other in quick succession, look like the incessant flashes of lurid lightning! Flame rises after flame, vanishing away in the darkness like winged devils chasing each other! I am filled with admiration, and at the same time struck with awe and chilled with fear. I do not know at what moment the whole volcano may boil over and pour forth a thousand cataracts of fire, as in 1872. I feel that I want to go, that I must go, yet I can not leave. I go a few paces and stop, looking first at the glowing column above me, then at the winding, fiery stream below.

I have seen many mountains, some of them rising to heaven, covered with snow, and at night crowned with stars; but never before have I seen one smoke-plumed and wreathed with flame, one belching forth fire and brimstone, one whose iron-belted sides poured forth a river of fire—a moving flood of flame. But why continue? Why describe the indescribable? For, reader, I assure you that unless I, like Vesuvius, had a tongue of fire and a voice of thunder, unless words were gems that would flame and flash with many-colored light upon the canvas and throw thence a tremulous glimmer into the beholder’s eyes, it were vain indeed to attempt a description of God’s imperial fireworks.