was compensated by the local knowledge of the country, which our progress up and round the mountain enabled us to acquire. The summit is formed of a sort of grey or whitish lava, in the midst of which the form of the crater is easily distinguishable. Two hermits and a soldier inhabit this solitary spot, and occupy apartments cut out of the solid rock. This mountain, and indeed the whole island, is evidently of volcanic origin, and formed of lava, tufo, and pumice stone. No eruption however has taken place since the year 1302, when the convulsions that shook the mountain were so violent, and the rivers of burning fluid that poured down its sides so extensive, and so destructive, that the towns and villages were all levelled with the ground or consumed, most of the inhabitants perished, and the few survivors were driven in terror from their homes. Since this tremendous explosion the island has enjoyed a state of tranquillity, and all apprehension of similar visita. tions seems removed. The subterraneous fire however is not extinguished, and the number of hot fountains that spring up in different places still attest its existence and activity. The surface of Ischia is very beautifully varied by vineyards, gardens, groves of chesnut, and villages. It is intersected by numberless steep and narrow dells, shaded by forest trees, intermingled with aloes, myrtles, and other odo riferous shrubs, that shoot out of the fissures of the rocks, and wave over their summits. The soil is fertile, and peculiarly favourable to vines; bence the wine of Ischia is plentiful, and held in considerable estimation; it is lodged in caverns worked out of the rocks, and formed

into very capacious and cool cellars, a method of keeping wine practised not only here and in some other parts of Italy, but in Austria, and various transalpine wine countries; it has many advantages, and implies' a great degree of honesty and mutual confidence among the inhabitants.

"Besides Ischia, there are nine towns and several villages; one of the former, Foria, is as large as the capital itself, and I believe more populous. Panza is on the southern side of the isle, and near it, on an insulated and conical rock, stands a fortress. Casamicio is placed nearly on the summit of Mount Epomeo; these towns have all one or two large churches, as many convents, and generally some medicinal waters, or hot baths, or sands, within their confines. The island of Ischia is extremely well peopled, and highly cultivated; and as its beauty, its waters, and the coolness and salubrity of its air, attract a considerable number of visitants to it in summer time, it may be considered as very prosperous and flourishing. Its coasts present a great variety of romantic scenery, as they are in general bold and craggy, indented with little bays, jutting out in points, and lined with shapeless rocks which have been torn in moments of convulsion from the shotë, or hurled from the precipices above. Such is Inarime, at present the centre of rural beauty and fertility, the resort of health and pleasure, very different from the shattered mountain tumbled in antient days by Jupiter on the giant monster, for ever resounding with his groans, and inflamed by his burning breath.

"On our return we touched at Procida, and again re-embarking crossed the bay of Pozzuolo. The

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port that once engrossed the commerce of the East, and was accustomed to behold the Roman navy riding on its bosom, was all solitude and silence; not one vessel, not even a boat was seen to ply in its forsaken waters, The Julian mole, Lucrinoque adita claustra no longer repel the indignant waves the royal structure which was numbered among the wonders of Italy, has scarcely left a trace of its existence; and the moral of the poet is literally exemplified in the very instance which he selected for its illustration.

"It was once the rural retreat of Brutus, and frequently honoured with Cicero's presence when on a visit to his friend. On doubling the promontory of Posilipo, we be held the bay with boats without number, skimming over its smooth surface, and Naples extended along the coast in all its glory full before us. The immense line of white edifices stretched along the beach, and spread over the hills behind; the bold but verdant coasts on either side, glittering with towns, villages, convents, and villas; and Mount Vesuvius raising its scorched summit almost in the centre, form a picture of singular beauty, and render this view from the sea prefer.

able to every other, because it alone combines all the characteristic features of this matchless prospect. We landed at sun-set, and sat down to dinner with our windows open full on the bay, the colours of which were gradually fading away and softening into the dim tints of twilight.

"We now turned our attention to Vesuvius, and resolved to visit that mountain without delay, and the more so as the increasing heat of the weather might, in a short time, render such an excursion extremely inconvenient. Therefore, leaving Naples about three o'clock next morning, we reached Portici, where guides with mules had been previously engaged to meet us at four, and instantly began the ascent. Vesuvius rises in a gentle swell from the shore; the first part or base of the mountain is covered with towns on all sides, such as Portici, Torre del Greco, Torre del Annon, ciata, on the sea coast; and Ottaiano, Somma, Massa, &c. on the inland side. These are all large towns, and with the villages and villas that encircle them, and extend over the second region of the moun tain, may be said, without exaggeration, to cover the lower parts of it with fertility, beauty, and population. The upper tract is a scene of perfect devastation, furrowed on all sides with rivers of lava extended in wide black lines over the surface. This region may be said to terminate at the Atrio dei Cavalli so called, because the traveller is obliged to dismount and leave his horse there till his return, as the summit of the mountain must be ascended on foot. This part has the shape of a truncated cone; it is formed almost entirely of ashes, and is extremely difficult of ascent,

as it yields under the pressure of the foot, so that one step out of three may be considered as lost. The guides however afford every assistance, and by means of a leather strap thrown over their shoulders ease the traveller not a little in his exertions. It is advisable to proceed slowly and rest at intervals, as the fatigue otherwise is sufficient to try even strong and youthful constitutions.

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"When we reached the summit we found ourselves on a narrow ledge of burnt earth or cinders, with the crater of the volcano open beneath us. This orifice in its present form, for it varies at almost every eruption, is about a mile and a half in circumference, and may be about three hundred and fifty feet in depth its eastern border is considerably higher than the western. Its sides are formed of asbes and cinders, with some rocks and masses of lava intermingled, and shelve in a steep declivity, enclosing at the bottom a flat space of about three quarters of a mile in circum. ference. We descended some way, but observing that the least motion or noise brought vast quantities of ashes and stones rolling together down the sides, and being called back by our guides, who assured us that we could not in safety go lower or even remain in our station, we re-ascended. We were near enough to the bottom however to observe, that it seemed to be a sort of crust of brown burnt earth, and that a little on one side there were three orifices like funnels, from whence ascended a vapour so thin as to be scarcely perceptible. Such was the state of the crater in the year 1802. We reached the summit a little before seven, and as we had ascended under the shade of

the mountain we had yet felt ne inconvenience from the heat; while on the top we were refresbed by a strong wind blowing from the east, and profiting of so favourable a circumstance we sat down on the highest point of the cone to enjoy the prospect. Vesuvius is about three thousand six hundred feet in height, and of course does not rank among the greater mountains; but its situation is so advantageous, that the scene which it unfolds to the eye probably surpasses that displayed from any other eminence. The prospect includes Naples, with its bay, its islands, and its bordering promontories; the whole of that delicious region justly denominated the Campania Felice, with its numberless towns and town-like villages. It loses itself in the immensity of the sea on one side, and on the other is bordered by the Apennines, forming a semicircular frame of various tints and bold outline. I own I do not admire views taken from very elevated points; they indeed give a very good geographical idea of the face of a coun try, but they destroy all the illusions of rural beauty, reduce hills and vales to the same level, and confound all the graceful swells and hollows of an undulated country in one dull flat surface.

"The most interesting object seen from the summit of Vesuvius is the mountain itself, torn to pieces by a series of convulsions, and strewed with its own ruins. Vesuvias may be said to have two summits; the cone which I have described, and a ridge separated from it by a deep valley, called Monte Somma, from a town that stands on its side. The distance between these two summits is in a straight line, nearly three thousand feet. The ridge on

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the side towards the cone presents a steep, rugged, barren precipice; on the other side, it shelves gently towards the plain, and is covered with verdure and villages. The valley or deep dell that winds between these eminences is a desolate hollow, formed entirely of calcined stones, cinders, and ashes, and resembles a vast subterra cous forge, the rocky roof of which has given way, and admitted light from above. Hence it is conjectured, that it is part of the interior of the mountain, as the ridge that borders it, or the Monte Somma, is the remnant of the exterior, or original surface so much celebrated for its beauty and fertility, previous to the eruption of the year 79 of the Christian era. It is indeed probable, that the throws and convulsions of the mountain in that first tremendous explosion may have totally shattered its upper parts, while the vast ejection of ashes, cinders, ignited stones, and melted minerals, must have left a large void in its centre. One entire side of the mountain seems to have been consumed, or scattered around on this occasion, while the other remains in Monte Somma. The cavity thus formed was filled up in part by the matter ejected in subsequent eruptions, and gradually raised into the present cone, which however varies its shape with every new agitation, and increases or diminishes, according to the quantity of materials thrown out by the mountain. Even in the last eruption, it lost a considerable share of its elevation, as the greater part of it, after having been raised and kept suspended in the air for some minutes, sunk into the crater and almost filled its cavity. The fire raging in the gulph below having thus lost its vent, burst through the

flank of the mountain, and poured out a torrent of lava that, as it rolled down the declivity, swept all. before it, and in its way to the sea destroyed the greater part of Torre del Greco.

"It is not my intention to describe the phenomena of Vesuvius, or to relate the details of its eruptions, which have been very numerous since the first recorded in history in the reign of Titus, so well described by Pliny the younger in two well-known epistles to Tacitus. I shall only observe that although this eruption be the first of which we have an account, yet Vesuvius had all the features of a volcano, and particularly the traces of a crater, from time immemorial Strabo speaks of it as being hollowed out into caverns, and having the appearances of being preyed upon by internal fires; and Florus relates a stratagem employed by a Roman officer, who, he says, conducted a body of men through the cavities and subterraneous passages of that mountain. These vestiges, however, neither disfigured its form nor checked its fertility; and it is represented as a scene of beauty and abundance, covered with villas, and enlivened by population, when the eruption burst forth with more suddenness and more fury than any, similar catastrophe on record. The darkness, the flames, the agitation, the uproar that accompanied this explosion, and extended its devastation and its terror so widely, might naturely excite among many of the degenerate and epicurean Romans that frequented the Campanian coasts, the opinion that the period of universal destruction was ar→ rived, and that the atoms which formed the world were about to dissolve their fortuitous combina

tion, and plunge the universe once more into chaos.

"The last eruption took place in 1794; the ashes, cinders, and even water, thrown from the mountain did considerable damage to the towns of Somma, Ottaiano, and all the circumjacent region; but the principal mischief was, as usual, occasioned by the lava, rivers of which, as I have already related, poured down the southern side of the mountain. These and several other torrents of similar matter, but earlier date, are seen from the summit, and may be traced from their source through the whole of their progress, which generally terminates in, the sea. They are narrow at first, but expand as they advance, and appear like so many tracks of rich black mould just turned up by the plough. When their destructiye effects are considered, one is surprized to see villas placed in their windings, vineyards waving over their borders, and towns rising in the very middle of their channels. In truth, ravaged and tortured as the vicinity of Vesuvius has been for so many ages, it must appear singular, that it has not been abandoned by its inhabitants, and consigned to the genius of fire and desolation as his own peculiar territory. But such is the richness of the soil, and so slight the damages occasioned by the volcano, when compared to the produce of the lands fertilized by its ashes; so delightful is the situation, and of its numerous inhabitants so small the number that suffer by its agitations, that the evil when divested of its terrific appearances seems an ordinary calamity, not exceeding in mischief the accidents of fire and inundation

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so common in northern countries. The alarm is indeed great on the approach of an eruption, because it is usually preceded by earthquakes; but when once the fermenting matter finds vent, the general danger is considered as over, and the progress. of the phenomena becomes an object of mere curiosity to all, excepting to the cultivators of the lands which the lava actually rolls over, or seems likely to ravage in its progress.

"We descended the cone or upper part of the mountain with great ease and rapidity, as the ashes yielding to the tread prevented slipping, and enabled us to hasten our pace without danger. From the Atrio dei Cavalli we proceeded towards a bed of lava ejected in the last eruption, and found its appearance very different from that which we had observed from the summit. From thence it resembled long stripes of new ploughed land, here it was like the surface of a dark muddy stream convulsed by a bur ricane, and frozen in a state of agitation; presenting rough broken masses rolling over each other, with a huge fragment rising above the rest bere and there, like a vast wave distorted by the tempest and congealed in its fall. The exterior parts of this once liquid torrent of fire are cold, but the sand produced by the friction and crumbling of the interior parts, although it is now eight years since the eruption, is still too hot to hold in the hand, as is indeed the earth itself under, or in immediate contact with these once glowing masses. We continued our descent, and again reached Portici about eleven o'clock.

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