25
e Naples, Friday evening Sept 2
Vesuvius.
Seen from below by daylight Vesuvius is a solitary
two headed mountain of great height and sharp
sides, with a thin small cloud of smoke
issuing from a point on the side which is concealed
from you and near the top of one of the peaks.
This light cloud of smoke is soon absorbed in
larger and sunlit clouds which hover over
and around the entire mountain, and is hardly
distinguishable from them. Seen at night the
mountain rises up in a towering cone. The
clouds and smoke on the top are lost, the
dark side of the mountain near its
base and just above the ^low^ shore line of the
sea exhibits a succession of bright red
fires such as spots of burning lava
such as bonfires placed in rows
would make only more intensely brilliant
than any vegetable substances could provide
if kindled there – the mountain is 4000
feet high. The lower part called the
base ascends is about thirty miles in cir-
cumference and ends in a plane at the height of
two thousand feet. You ascend this ^base^ by a path
winding around it. The upper part of the

26
mountain rises in two peaks from this
plane. The ^space^ valley between them is a valley
varying from two miles wide in front to
a quarter of mile as you proceed inward
from the coast. The water is d of descending
rains flows both ways from this valley
towards the sea level. The ascent of each
of the two peaks is sharp, at an angle
I think of 50 degrees – and the slope is
without any break or distraction, exactly
like the side of a regularly built arti-
ficial pyramid. The sides of the base, or
rather its circumference is clothed with vegetat-
tion when the earth has not been abraded
by recent H torrents of lava – but the ^sharp^ sides
of the two or su peaks rising out of the
base are bare and black as of the surface
of the sharp declivity of Mount Ida at
after a land slide.
It was two o,clock this morning when
we issued in our carriage from our hotel
and made our way through the streets meeting
only the sentinels at the barracks and at
the Palace in our way to Resina ^built on^ the roof

27
30
of the buried Herculaneum. Here we took dwarf
horses and guides and proceeding through various
back ways continually rising we passed several
villas and chateaus and vineyards through plain
well paved or macadamed roads winding
along the sides of the base of the mountain, to
an elevation of 400 or 500 feet. A mounted
guide rode before us with a torch, and
a guide on foot followed each horse and
lighted the path for each one of our
party. At length the road ceased and we
commenced our ascent in a channel worn –
by the mountain torrent, without steps or
stairs often worn into deep dark gullies –
often into holes, and every few steps distanced
by great stones. The horses familiar with the
way ascended this rough path with
wonderful sagacity. It was needful to
drop the bridle and bracing yourself
in the stirrups hold fast by the mane of
the beast as he played and dashed
upward walking first one side and then the
other against stones and often walking on
a narrow path of less than a foot over dark
holes into which you expected to roll with
the horse and get buried under him.

28
Rising The trees over your head increased the
Darkness. Just when we had been dragged
perpendicularly up on one of the planes, we found
a de wide spreading inclined plane on
our left. Seen on the right it might seemed
miles wide, and it was covered even
up to the very edge of our path with
a bed of fire burning intensely bright but
here and there partially covered by black
masses of cold and hardened cynders.
It differed from all other flames in being ap-
parently motionless. It moved neither up-
wards nor downwards nor side ways
and it gave forth no smoke. It was
fire motionless and at rest, but intensely
bright, and its heat was painful to us
as we passed. We turned an angle and
lost sight of the fiery plain – and following the
torch lights and threading that narrow dark
gully in its windings climbed upwards every
now and then from on gaining a new elevation
looking down upon the sea of fire below us
or gaining a view of a similar one more
distant from us. At length the day light dawn
rendered our way sufficiently light. The torches
were extinguished. The guides clung to the

29
horses tails each of which thus carried one person
and dragged another up the rocky path.
We emerged at last on the plain of the base
of the mountain, where on looking down we
saw the fiery surfaces below us paling
before the sunlight, – Naples and Castellammare
and Sorrento and Cassoria and Misenum
and Puteoli and Ischia with innumerable
other villages appeared in the dawn now
twilight as if emerging from a dense cloud
or fog. We stopped not at the Hermitage
or at the observatory here, but hurried on
through few of the heats of the ordinary day,
and in an hour now we were at far
in the valley between the two peaks where
the water flows each way, and where a
quarter of a mile only separated the
lowest rocks of the two peaks from each
other, Here we and each was ^over 200^ in its sharp
elevation of 50 degrees before us, the opposite
one at right angles or perpendicularly – That
opposite one was the Monte Somma, the peak
where eruptions in 17 93 destroyed Herculaneum
and Pompeii. The face it presented to us was
abrupt perpendicular rock, scarred and seamed

30
by successive eruptions. It was impossible
not to see that this it was only the outer wall
of Vesuvius and that its inner mass was all
blown out and away and that the valley
in which between Somma and the present
fiery peak, in which we stood was
the bottom of the ancient crater of the
whole mountain. Turning to the face the other
peak we saw the smoke rising from its
summit and mingling with the clouds – not
a tree or blade of grass was visible on
its side, but at intervals of a few rods
were hanging on it black masses of
cynders sometimes three feet sometimes
sixty feet thick, stretching from the
top of the mountain two thousand feet down
its sides and extending quite in strange
singular curves sometimes a rod wide
sometimes forty rods wide upon the
plane, and covering entirely the valley
so that our road was often made
over them. Each of them was a river
of lava, and scoria left by a single
eruption. But one river ^bed^ placed over

31
another, one had been placed across another
and the red floods congealing at the
surface and turning black took all incon-
ceivable forms and knotty and
shapes. Sometimes it was level and flat,
then it would be twisted appear
into graceful forms, then singular but
curving like the roots of a forest when
the earth upon them is uncovered, now into
forms as graceful as summer clouds now
in twisted ropes and even then ropes
how worn into a black drapery. What
was more wonderful was that as we
passed over these rivers, we found there
surface was hollow, and that that the
heated scoria had risen like a foam
in a hung kettle, and hardened and
cooled in that shape, and then the atmosphere
had caused it to crack and fall in.
On this brittle flooring we walked for
miles, seeing the fire lurking in deep
recesses beneath our feet, and at the
seeming peril of being let down by the
breaking cynders into beds of liquid lava.
Our feet were heated and our breath
shortened by these heats proceeding from beds

32
of lava that had flowed there over months
six months and even five and six years before us
But a portions of the face of the peak were
not covered by these freshly deposited and
congealed rivers of scoria and lava. They
were not therefore the less volcanic in their
character. The same ancient rivers of
fire and ashes which had caused them
had cooled and had been broken by
the atmosphere into fine pieces like ^a black^ gravel which was and ^this^ was now resolving itself
into a thick ^coarse^ black dust. In time some
new eruption will cover them with new
deposits.
And now we had an obelisk
two thousand feet high with an angle ^surface contributing an^ of
^angle^ 50 degrees to ascend. We int had two
choices, one was to climb up the rough
congealed rivers of lava – The other to try
to cli ascend through a ^heaping^ bed of scoria dust.
Horses were of no use. Each of us took a
stiff staff, and following the guides we
proceeded to make our way up the congealed
river of scoria, its blocks were like those of broken

33
ice, only rough, and black. I found my strength
inadequate to the effort needed, and I
therefore consented to take a chair which was
fixed upon two poles, and four of the
guides taking me in this made chair on
their shoulders, with their practiced skill
carried me up two or three rods at a
time. Then I climbed on the hanging beds
of congealed cynders as many more rods
and then they carried me on as before,
and so alternating from my own feet to the chair and
back again I made my way. My companion being
more youthful succeeded with the help of
guide who carried a strap round his
body with an end in the hand of the
traveler – many a marvelously intelligent horse
can be made out of an Italian. We made
the ascent in two of the steep obelisk under
the blazing heat of the morning sun in about
two hours and an half, and sat down
and rested half an hour at the distance
of 100 feet or more from the lip of the
crater – but our seat was in the cynders
there was no rock nor earth but only cynders

34
that were hot and burned our boots, below
them we could see the liquid fire through indentions.
When we had sufficiently rested we resumed
our way to the craters edge – ^deep long^ seams appeared
under our feet showing that the side of the
mountain on which we stood walking was
already undermined by subterranean fires in
the oven below and must soon break off
and fall in, sulphurous vapors almost
overpowered us and mineral sulphur oozing through
the crevices coated every thing around us
with a yellow hue. We walked on
our heated cynders and avoiding the too
wide crevices until we reached the
craters edge. Before us was a ^concave^ chasm
forty rods wide – a heavy black smoke
whirled up through it and around us enveloped
us. We looked in and down – though we could
see 250 feet down we saw no bottom only an open heated orange mouth a vast heated oven –
the side covered with fresh white ashes
the smoke circling and pulled up by sul-
phur loaded wind. our There was no

35
absolute flame within sight, but the smoke
took on a red hue and fiery hue re-
flected upon it by fires which we were
so low down as to lurk beyond our sight.
It was a fearful place. Our lungs protested
against the mineral fires conveyed to them
by the air – our sight was blinded by
the fiery smoke, sulphrous vapors came
up not only out of the cave but out of the
fissures of the rocks under our feet
It became doubtful to our senses which
was the way to escape. We listened and
the deep cavern growled with internal
thunder rumbling as if to give notice
that some new convulsion was to occur
rendering rending the unstable roof
and dre casting it with newly ejected
rocks far off into the plane. We retreated
twice there when we approached, and
taking a place far away from the
craters mouth, or the cyinders we
spread our breakfast, and enjoyed

36
morning meal with the smoke of Vesuvius
for the incense – which conveyed our thanks
to the presence of our lives, and with
the cities of Naples and the plain for
our attendants and witnesses of the feast.
It was noon when we descended. Avoiding
the hanging beds of recent lava and
scoria, we went down the steep mountainside
covered with the hanging beds of fine dust
Each time I set down my foot the heel
entered this ^loose^ deposit and I sunk into
it more than ancle deep. It was through
like going down a ^steep^ sand hill. A few
miles brought us to the level of the plain
or the base, where our horses had been left –
the Atrio del Val Cavallo – as it is
called. We returned by the road we
had ascended. It being now broad
day light we had an opportunity of
seeing all that the night had concealed
from us in our ascent. We found that
the volcano discharges dust ashes earth
and boulders as well as lava through
the crater, (but not only this, but it dis-

37 44
charges also lava through many crevices near
the crater. The eruptions sometimes throw
the ejected matter a thousand sometimes two
thousand feet high, and in masses of all
sizes and of all forms, and of all sub-
stances. Rocks – (boulders) are heated in the
furnace and cast up to the ^as^ large enough to
as a horse, of them some are granite, some lime
some red sand stone, they fall over the
mountain sides as far off as the plain
below, and then cool, and in cooling seams
or fissures open. The lava being heated
and heavy is continually giving off earthy
and stony matter, some of which sinks
and makes a bed for the lava to flow
in, the rest foams into a covering of scoria
ashes and stones, which swells out like
bubbles and cools and being a bad con-
ductor of heat serves as a covering
for the heated lava which flows under
it. This lava flows over these protected
and kept hot by newly fed additions from
the various fires, sometimes Keeps hot and flowing

45 38
even for many years. I traced its flow down
the mountain and found that the lava of
the ^last^ eruption (which took place ^began^ fourteen
months ago has now reached so low
as within 500 feet of the sea line – and is
going onward. By carefully watching it in
the day time I saw this burning river ac-
tually move, and I ascertained by measure-
ment that it had advanced ten rods within
the last twenty four hours. It was swallowing
up orchards and vineyards and fig
trees and orange trees. I gathered grapes from
one vine which was blasted and I lighted
my cigar from the burning material that had con-
sumed the vine which stood next to it. The
owner of the vineyard had removed his
furniture from the dwelling house, and had
^the day before I came thus^ suspended a paper ^on a tree^ containing a prayer
addressed to St. Januarius invoking his aid
to avert the fiery flood, but the Saint
had not interfered. I see no reason to doubt
that this flood will yet add another
layer to the roof that covers Relt Hercu-
laneum. I learned also that the volcano
is most destructive when it sends up

39 42
fires of heated steam which condenses
with in combination with ashes and rains
a thick heavy mud. It was in this way
that Pompeii was destroyed.
We stopped at the Hermitage on
our way down, and distributed a substantial
meal to our guides not forgetting proven-
der for the horses and then threaded our
way down to the st streets of Resina
where after disclosing our return and
paying them all in expenses about as much
as the already large cost of our expedition
we took our carriage and made our way
home – how fatigued how exhausted,
the desultory notes form of these notes
will show.