74 AUTUMN VISIT TO LIPARI ISLES 



our friends, lest another explosion should catch us on 

 the way. Hearty congratulations from them ; it was 

 something to have passed unscathed through the volcanic 

 fires. 



The descent of the cone was made very rapidly ; the 

 long slopes of fine ash tempted us to try a glissade, but 

 they proved too loose ; however, we could run down 

 them with great speed. The cultivated region reached, 

 we regaled ourselves with ripe figs, a luscious change 

 from the volcanic ash, of which we had taken too much. 

 The steamer had been brought round to meet us, and we 

 swam off to her, leaving our clothes to be brought on by 

 the boat. Wrapped in a sheet (the glorious climate 

 renders further clothing unnecessary), we sat down to 

 dinner [John Dory and cuttle-fish stewed in oil ; then 

 coffee and grapes, as Mr. Thomas reminds me], and as 

 evening came on steamed off to lie opposite the Sciarra del 

 Fuoco, a steep slope, which descends from the seaward 

 edge of the crater straight to the sea. The lava in the 

 crater of one of the cones " blobs " over the edge and 

 runs down the sides of the Sciarra in a continual chain 

 of fire ; while at every explosion a host of red-hot frag- 

 ments covers the sides of the cones and the Sciarra with 

 a starry mantle, glowing brilliantly from out the pitchy 

 blackness of the night. 



Next morning we visited Panarea and some other 

 islands, and the day after Vulcano. Here the first sight 

 that met us was Mr. Narlian's deserted house, to which 

 the swing still standing in the ash-covered garden gave a 

 final pathetic touch. Thence we walked through the 

 deserted vineyards, now half buried in ash, and so on to 

 the foot of the cone. On the way we met with numerous 

 volcanic bombs rounded masses of porous lava a yard 

 or so in diameter. They had been ejected from the 

 crater, 1,000 feet above us, and to such a height beyond 



