In order to convey a general idea of the features of this volcano, we shall give a brief account of the ascent, which is a matter of no difficulty, and may easily be accomplished by ladies.
There are different tracks by which the moun tain may be ascended, but that universally preferred is by Resina, and it alone we shall describe. This village lies at the base of the mountain near the sea-shore, and is about six miles cast of Naples. Here the traveller may think himself fortunate if he can secure the personal attendance of the elder Sal vatore, one of the best guides-who can be met with for any such expedition; asses are usually taken to diminish the labour of the ascent. For some way the road is simply rugged and stony, bounded by high walls inclosing those extensive vineyards which produce the admirable Lacryma Christi of this vicinity; currents of lava will occasionally meet the eye of the traveller, and on the right hand he will remark an unfortunate house, one half of which has literally been swept away by such a stream, whilst the other has been left entire, as if to tell the tale. Farther on, cultivation in a moment ceases, and all the luxuriance of nature and of art com bined is exchanged within a few yards for a degree of obdurate sterility in the one which bids defiance to all the ameliorating efforts of the other. In a word, we have reached the western extremity or embouchure of the Atrio del Cavallo, and we see stretched before us the combined streams of the eruptions of 1767, 1771, 1819 and 1822. The last is not here so strikingly repulsive as higher up the valley, as we shall presently describe; that of 1819 is remarkable for the peculiar ropy form which it has assumed, being nothing else than the effect of successive waves of scoriaceons matter forcing up the imperfectly solidified substance of the preceding ones; hence it has acquired the appropriate name of "Lava Corde." Near it may be seen rudely in termixed tabular masses; these have been produced by the insinuation of a liquid stream below a thin but solid crust of lava which it has shattered, and then recombined the fragments. A few lichens on the lava of 1767, are all the marks of decomposi tion\ which it yet exhibits, and those on the current of 1819 are little better than microscopic; yet even these are farther advanced than some other lavas in the Bay of Naples which have lain exposed for cen turies. We next reach the Monte Cantaroni al ready mentioned, which presents a steep ascent; the highest point of this huge protruded mass of tufa is occupied by the hermitage of St. Salvador, where the monks live, who rather lead the life of publi cans than eremites.* It is to be observed, that coming to Monte Cantaroni at all, is quite out of the direct line of ascent, for we must again cross the Atrio del Cavallo; but besides having the benefit of some species of road, the traveller who wishes to see the mountain, will do well to make this digres sion. Leaving St. Salvador, we pass near the
" Cratere dcl Francese," where in 1819 an unfortu nate Frenchman, after living three days at the her mitage, plunged into the boiling abyss of lava, and met a fiery grave. Once more descending from the tufaceous eminence to the plain, we leave to the left the Monte Somma, and " Fossa di Faraonte," into which flowed the lava of 1785, and which di vides it from Monte Cantaroni, and set our faces towards the cone of Vesuvius.
It is impossible to convey any impression of the state of this broad plain to those who have not vi sited similar scenes. The amorphous mass of stony matter deposited by the last great eruption (1822) has an appearance of sterility which no other rocky formation presents; and fur this plain reason, that upon these natural causes of gradual but sure de gradation have been working for thousands of years, while here the newly moulded matter is ejected un formed and intractable as when it so lately existed in the bowels of the earth. The small scale of ar tificial penetration of the strata at which human labour has arrived, can convey no idea of their pri meval form: the difference lies in the comparative symmetry of our mining operations as well as in the trifling extent of surface they present; but this valley consists of several square miles, and the en tire western portion is buried under this stony in undation, hard, black, and rugged, sometimes swelling into craggy eminences with narrow ca vernous hollows between, or occasionally flowing in a thinner stream over the flat-bed prepared for it by the pre-occurrence of a tremendous shower of ashes, above which it has formed blistered cavities, into which shoot spicular masses of the same dark intractable material. The only variety with which the eye meets in this great plain, is here and there an ejected mass of many cubic yards content, dis charged from the mountain with such explosive force as to be driven far from the base of the cone: all else has but a symmetry in horror. Nature here wants the majesty and elevation of rocky cliffs, or the rich coating of verdure, or the more interest ing struggle of vegetable luxuriance with an arid soil,—although but little removed from the fertile slope of the hill and the vast expanse of the highest cultivation which environs its base, these beauties only contrast the more with the dark, cold, mono tonous lava of which the distorted forms seem to partake of mobility, were we not assured by our senses that it were the work of centuries to reduce the rugged configuration of this siliceous rock.