282 Condition of Vesuvius. 



the necessary equipments, guides, horses or jackasses, and torches ; 

 and, being dressed in suits of clothes for the occasion, about two hours 

 after sunset, we commenced the ascent. We had selected the night 

 for the excursion, because at that time, the lava can exhibit more 

 clearly its own light, and also to view the rising sun, a splendid sight, 

 as we had been informed, heightened as it is by the beautiful surround- 

 ing scenery. With but the light of our torches, I could not, of course, 

 examine the nature of the soil, over v^^hich we were passing. When 

 ascending in the morning, I observed that our road ran along a strip 

 of land, elevated above the general level of the side hill, and hence 

 inaccessible to the lava, coming in this direction, as it would natu- 

 rally take its course, in the valley to one side of it. This elevated 

 land, named Monte Cantaroni may be considered as connecting 

 Somma with the cone of Vesuvius. It is intersected by three val- 

 lies, the most northerly of which, Vallono della Vetruva, received 

 the current of lava of 1785. For a considerable distance, there 

 were cultivated fields and vineyards, on either side of our road. 

 Part of the way it was cut through a bank of pebbles and sand. A 

 ride of five miles brought us to the hermitage, at the top of Mount 

 Cantaroni, an usual place of recruit for travellers, indeed a half way 

 house : not wishing to ascend immediately, we rested here for three 

 hours. At two o'clock A. M. we again mounted our horses, and in 

 half an hour reached the foot of- the cone. After leaving the her- 

 mitage, vegetation grew more and more scanty, as we proceeded, — 

 here we find but a barren waste of lava, which continues up the cone> 

 there, however, composed also of loose cinders and volcanic ashes. 

 — This lava is the current of 1822. — It was a tedious walk up the 

 cone, both because of the steepness of the acclivity and of the yield- 

 ing nature of the material over which we travelled. In three quar- 

 ters of an hour, we were relieved by arriving on a plain, the princi- 

 pal summit, near the center of which was situated a small cone, the 

 present aperture for the smoke and ejected stones and lava. This 

 plain is the old crater, which but four years since was reached by a 

 descent of two thousand feet* — the bottom of " an immense and 

 frightful gulf." — In 1829, a person, when he had reached the sum- 

 mit, stood upon a narrow ridge, and could but look down to this seat 



* Tioo Years and a Half in the Navy. — As the volcano now appears, it may 

 be as near the truth, to dimmish the above statement by one fourth. 



