1'2'2 AN ASCENT OF VESUVIUS. 



time not to have advanced more than six inches up the mountain. 

 The best way is to look forward at every stride, and to select for a 

 stepping stone any lump of lava which may project above the surface 

 and promise a surer footing. 



For ladies and invalids there is a less laborious means of accom- 

 plishing- the ascent, by means of a chair carried with poles on the 

 shoulders of the peasants. The motion cannot be very easy ; but, for 

 weak or delicate persons, walking up would be impossible. Another 

 means of assistance is a rope which the guide holds with his hands, 

 passes over his shoulder, and allows his more effeminate brother to 

 tug at the other end. But there is something very displeasing in the 

 appearance : it is too like slave driving ; it is converting the man 

 who pulls into the semblance of a brute beast. My guide, seeing 

 me occasionally halt for breath, repeatedly said, " Volete la corda? 

 Will you have the rope?" But I felt that I should deserve to have 

 it administered in the English fashion, if I had treated this Neapoli- 

 tan in the same way that the Neapolitans treat a jack-ass. When 

 about two-thirds of the ascent were accomplished, I was surprised to 

 find a small basket filled with oranges, pears, apples, bread, wine, 

 and glasses, resting upon a large stone. It seemed dropped there 

 by some good spirit ; for there was no one to take care of it, and not 

 a creature was within sight. The guide advised me to take some- 

 thing from it, assuring me that one of the brethren of his profession 

 had left it there purposely for strangers, and that I might pay him 

 on the top. I took a pear, cool, sweet, and juicy : it was most in- 

 vigorating, and sent me fresh and lively to the top. I felt that it 

 was something to be on the summit of Vesuvius, and a triumphant 

 pleasure to look back at other pedestrians far behind, and at the 

 ladies trembling on their portantine or chairs, with half the distance 

 yet to be accomplished. One of our party performed this last stage 

 of the excursion, on foot, in three and twenty minutes, which was 

 certainly a feat that deserves to be boasted of. 



Vesuvius has two summits, which are nearly equal in height. The 

 northern one called La Somma is separated from the present crater 

 by a little plain, which at the first glance appears to be the hardened 

 surface of an extinct mouth of the volcano. The guides say that 

 from this old crater, of which Monte Somma is only the lip or edge, 

 issued those streams of lava and showers of ashes which destroyed 

 Herculaneum and Pompeii. Monte Somma itself is the work of 

 some still earlier eruption, and at this day furnishes all the materials 

 for those toys, trinkets, and ornaments, which their purchasers erro- 

 neously suppose to be wrought from the lava of the present crater. 

 That a volcano existed on this spot in very remote times is sufficiently 

 proved by the circumstance that Herculaneum and Pompeii are in a 

 great measure built of antique lava, although this volcano must have 

 differed very much from the present appearance, and probably rose 

 suddenly in the midst of that extensive plain between the Appennines, 

 and the sea, in the same manner as Monte Nuovo, near the bay of 

 Pozzuoli, has done within the last few hundred years. 



The other summit, which is always understood when Vesuvius is 

 mentioned, is very variable both in height and appearance. In March 



