74 THE MOUNTAINEER 



base, and that this valley was probably. once the old crater, while the pres- 

 ent cone had been built np toward the south thousands of feet above its 

 original site. The road now begins to zigzag and the breath of the three 

 women to grow shorter. To add to our aftiietions the guides beseech us to 

 let them help, promising to drag us to the top still so far away. Using a 

 part of that breath we voice our intentions to get to the top alone and 

 trudge wearily on until we meet the official guides provided by the com- 

 mune of Resina. The law compels all tourists to pay these men at least 

 two and one-half lira (fifty cents) although I think the money is really an 

 admission fee to the mountain for I could not see what the guides did for the 

 money. Two of our party refused tribute and we rested while the air was 

 filled with argument. It was pay or go back, and the guides conquered. 

 The path of yielding ashes now went straight up at about forty-five degrees. 

 The sun burned our backs and the ash and lava burned our feet, although 

 there was no visible heat. It seemed as if human endurance could not with- 

 stand the soft voices pleading, "Takea holda the ropa, lady, only onea 

 lira." The thought that I was a "mountaineer" gave me a bit more cour- 

 age and at last, after a climb of one hour and ten minutes, the edge of 

 the crater was under my feet. Even now my expectations of burning lava 

 and clouds of smoke were unrealized, for the only signs of heat were six 

 jets of steam, which I counted as I leaned over the edge. In a second the 

 bracing air made me forget all previous effort and I stood afraid but 

 entranced with my surroundings. There was nothing around to which we 

 might cling. At one side yawned the bottomless crater, stretching east one- 

 third mile, and on the other the steep slope of the cone which looked so 

 smooth and treacherous as we stood forty-two hundred feet abve the shin- 

 ing blue Neapolitan bay. Beyond the water the green islands of Capri and 

 Ischia ruggedly outlined the horizon. Here, at our feet, lay Pompeii and we 

 caught glimpses of its walls emerging from the long burial caused by this 

 very mountain. There lies Naples where men and women laugh and sing 

 and children romp and play, as doubtless did the men, women and children 

 of Pompeii and Herculaneum nearly nineteen hundred years ago. Our 

 meditations were stopped by the cry, "It is time to start," and we turned 

 away with visions of beauty stored in soul and brain. 



The trip down the cone was uneventful, but I could not leave the 

 mountain immediately and stopped at the inn near the Observatory for a 

 two-o'clock breakfast of figs, omelette and honey cakes, fit for the food of 

 those old gods who lived on that other Italian mountain and were wor- 

 shipped as real by the ancestors of mine host Vesuvius. 



As I sat viewing the bright waters of the bay and the glowing colors 

 of the red-tiled houses of Naples, and turned from the brown cone to look 

 out upon the fertile Campania stretching away from the sea to far bej'ond 

 my view, I caught a glimpse of kinship between the people and the moun- 

 tain. I realized that the wonderful fertility of all this region is due to the 

 material thrown out by this mountain in its great convulsions, and I under- 

 stood why, in spite of their terror, the Neapolitans love their mountain. It 

 is a type of their own volcanic natures, full of warmth, great of depth, 

 capable of terrible deeds which, once committed, are soon forgotten, yet 

 generous, bountiful, loving, beautiful. 



