120 AN ASCENT OF VESUVIUS. 



unknown in England, or known only in our gardens and greenhouses. 

 Among these the bright green lizard, so common all over Italy, 

 winds about in search of some fly or worm, or lies basking in the sun, 

 half concealed in the crevice which forms its home and its habitation. 

 But, after advancing for a time, you catch between the trees 



flimpses of the dark boundary which terminates the Carnpagna 

 'elice; and a few mom'ents afterwards you emerge upon an open 

 plain, which extends far and wide in black irregular ridges, and 

 seems as if a sea of boiling pitch had suddenly been hardened. We 

 are now entering upon the streams of lava which have been poured 

 from time to time, one above the other, from the mouth of the volcano. 

 Their surface is all broken up into large lumps and masses, as if it had 

 been hewn by the hand of man. It looks something like a vast 

 ploughed field, where the ground is very rough, and the soil black, 

 sticky, and tenacious. As the lava cools and contracts, the crude ma- 

 terials of which it is formed split, and crack, and excoriate in a 

 thousand directions ; and the gradual shrinking of the whole mass 

 produces the most curious folds and ridges. Where the melted lava has 

 ended its course it is always arrested suddenly. The line of demarca- 

 tion between the Campagna and the lava which encroaches on it is as 

 plainly determined as if a wall had been built up ; and the vine 

 grows and flourishes within six inches of the enemy that has destroyed 

 the vine that had been its neighbour. 



The stream of lava first entered upon is that of the great eruption 

 of 1822, and over part of this has flowed the lava of August 1834, 

 and which in March 1835 was not yet cool. Upon touching it with 

 the hand a degree of heat was felt very different from any thing that 

 could be caused by the sun in spring time, even in Italy. In this 

 neighbourhod, of course, no vegetation was to be seen ; but not even 

 upon any of the older streams had a patch or a blade of green ap- 

 peared. All is black, barren, and dreary desolation. 



But there is one spot in view which seems always to have been 

 spared amidst the general destruction. It is a long shoulder stretch- 

 ing out from the foot of the crater, and which seems itself like a little 

 mountain planted on the side of Vesuvius. Upon inspecting its for- 

 mation, strata above strata of ashes, and small pumice stones, may be 

 traced; and they have not destroyed its greenness or fertility : but 

 the lava, in descending from the crater, has always swept round its 

 base, and remains there like a dark current winding by the foot of a 

 rock. It is natural to suppose that, in crossing the streams of lava, 

 every eye is directed towards so pleasing a contrast to the general 

 barrenness, particularly as upon the very extremity of the green 

 knoll is placed a neat white-washed building, surrounded with trees, 

 the famous Hermitage of Mount Vesuvius. And after climbing for 

 a few minutes up a narrow gulley, which the rain has washed through 

 the bed.s of pumice stone, we find ourselves upon the grass plat, 

 which lies before this elevated place of retirement. Here we stop 

 awhile, to give the donkeys a breathing, to leave the dinner which 

 a wise man will have brought against his descent, and to taste a glass 

 of Lagryma Christi, on the spot where it grows. Nor will the view 

 be despised ; for, though less extensive than that which is obtained 



