12 Remarks on Mount Vesiivins. 



rain reached the hermitage on the side of the hill at one 

 o'clock.. The road so far is very rugged, with many de- 

 tached rocks and fragments of lava, but the great bed of the 

 latter is now resuming marks of slight verdure. The habita- 

 tion of the monks itself is placed on a projection from the 

 mountain of tufa rock formed in the year 1779 by the eruption, 

 and lies so towards the crater, that, though the lava flows on 

 both sides, the eminence itself is left untouched. When we 

 arrived here the weather appeared to be clearing, and, as we 

 had plenty of time to ascend and see the sun set from the top, 

 we remained some time with the holy fathers, and the after- 

 noon answered our expectations. When almost fair we set off 

 and pursued our way on asses towards the cone. Our road (if 

 such it could be called) lay over an extensive bed of lava, 

 partly formed in 1 822. A more desolate scene can scarcely be 

 conceived ; rugged rising grounds, with craggy convulsed dells 

 between, all formed of this hard, black, monotonous, and fright- 

 fully romantic lava ; the very Tartarus on earth, whether we 

 imagine it burning with sheets of liquid fire, unquenchable by 

 human means, and rolling down its dread resistless tide, or 

 whether we see its wide convulsed remains, its indescribably 

 horrid, desolate, uninhabitable aspect. It seems as if the 

 elements of nature were exposed to light, and one chaotic 

 spot left amidst the richness of creation. Passing this dreary 

 tract, we reached the bottom of the cone at half-past two, 

 where we left our beasts and ascended on foot. It is compos- 

 ed of productions of the volcano itself, and the exterior is 

 quite coated with loose cinders, which renders the ascent very 

 laborious, as you often sink back till you are above the ancle in 

 these loose materials. I ascended it in forty minutes. When 

 we reached the brink of the crater we found it full of smoke and 

 fumes, while the strongest sulphureous smells prevailed. We 

 rested and refreshed ourselves for some time in a hot crevice, 

 where we left several eggs to roast, and then advanced round 

 the south brink of the abyss, and had a tolerably easy walk 

 for about half its circumference, during which we heard occa- 

 sionally noises like thunder proceeding from rocks every now 

 and then giving way from the sides in vast masses, whose fall 

 is reverberated and renewed by the echoes of the vast cavern. 



