CO SPRINGS, RIVERS, CANALS, LAKES, 



mound four miles in circumference, and one thousand feet high, 

 with a large cup in the middle. Immediately after the explosion, 

 the wind rose furiously, and wafted the lighter particles over the 

 country, burning and blasting all vegetation in its progress : wher- 

 ever these ashes, impregnated with poison, adhered to the grass, death 

 became the immediate lot of all beasts that bronzed upon it. The 

 terrors occasioned by this phenomenon threatened the abandonment 

 of the whole district ; scarcely a family durst remain even within 

 sight of this horrid heap, which had overwhelmed a large town, 

 filled up a lake, and buried under it a very extensive tract of culti- 

 vated lands. To encourage people to return to this neighbourhood, 

 Don Pedro dc Toledo, viceroy of Naples, built a villa, and fixed 

 his residence at Puzzuoli ; his example, and time, that soother of 

 woe, overcame the general consternation. When men are obliged 

 to apply to daily labour for sustenance, and their minds are of course 

 exclusively occupied by the idea of present necessities, the images 

 of past disasters are easily obliterated, and, therefore, in a few years 

 Don Pedro saw this district repeopled. 



Part of Monte Nuovo is cultivated ; but the larger portion of its 

 declivity is wildly overgrown with prickly broom, and rank weeds 

 that emit a very foetid sulphureous smell. The crater is shallow, 

 its inside clad with shrubs, and the little area at the bottom planted 

 with fig and mulberry trees; a most striking specimen of the amaz- 

 ing vicissitudes that take place in this extraordinary country. I saw 

 no traces of lava or melted matter, and few stones within. 



Near the foot of this mountain the subterraneous fires act with 

 such immediate power, that even the sand at the bottom of the sea 

 is heated to an intolerable degree. 



A long neck of land prevents the waves from washing into a sedgy 

 pool, the poor remnant of the Lucrine lake, once so renowned for the 

 abundance and flavour of its shell.fish, of which large beds lined 

 the shallows, while a deep channel in the middle afforded riding and 

 anchorage for vessels, and a passage into the inner bason of Aver- 

 nus ; a small canal now serves to discharge the superabundant 

 waters. I suppose, that originally the Lucriue was only a marsh 

 overflowed by the sea, till Hercules gave it extent and depth, by- 

 rising a mound across, and damming out the salt water ; that after- 

 wards Augustus formed the Julian port, by raising this wear to a suffi- 

 cient level, and thereby procuring depth of water for a navy to float 

 in. [Swinburne's Travels.] 



