University of Virginia Library

64. LETTER LXIV.

Mounted upon asses much smaller than their riders,
and with each a barelegged driver behind, we
commenced the ascent of Vesuvius. It was a troublesome
path worn through the rough scoria of old
eruptions, and after two hours' toiling, we were glad
to dismount at “the hermitage.” Here lives a capuchin
friar on a prominent rib in the side of the volcano,
the red-hot lava dividing above his dwelling every year
or two, and coursing away to the valley in two rivers
of fire on either side of him. He has been there
twelve years, and supports himself, and probably half
the brotherhood at the monastery by selling lagrima
Christi to strangers. It is a small white building with
a little grass and a few trees about it, and looks like an
island in the black waste of cinders and lava.

A shout from the guide was answered by the open
ing of a small window above, and the shaven crown
of the old friar was thrust forth with a welcome and a
request that we would mount the stairs to the parlor.
He received us at the top, and gave us chairs around
a plain board table, upon which he set several bottles
of the far-famed wine of Vesuvius. One drinks it,
and blesses the volcano that warmed the roots of the
grape. It is a ripe, rich, full-bodied liquor which
“ascends me into the brain” sooner than any continental
wine I have tasted. I never drank anything
more delicious.

We remounted our asses and rode on, much more
indifferent than before to the roughness of the path.
It strikes one like the road to the infernal regions.
No grass, not a shrub, nothing but a wide mountain
of cinders, black and rugged, diversified only by the
deeper die of the newer streaks of lava. The eye
wearied of gazing on it. We mounted thus for an
hour or more, arriving at last at the base of a lofty
cone whose sides were but slopes of deep ashes. We
left our donkeys here in company with those of a large
party that had preceded us, and made preparations to
ascend on foot. The drivers unlaced their sashes and
passing them round the waists of the ladies, took the
ends over their shoulders, and proceeded. Harder
work could scarce be conceived. The feet had no
hold, sinking knee-deep at every step, and we slipped
back so much, that our progress was almost imperceptible.
The ladies were soon tired out, although
more than half dragged up by the guides. At every
few steps there was a general cry for a halt, and we lay
down in the warm ashes, quite breathless and discouraged.

In something more than an hour from the hermitage
we reached the edge of the old crater. The
scene here was very curious. A hollow, perhaps a
mile round, composed entirely of scoria (like the cinders
under a blacksmith's window) contained in its
centre the sharp new cone of the last eruption.
Around, in various directions, sat some thirty groups
of travellers, with each their six or seven Italian guides,
refreshing themselves with a lunch after the fatigues
of the ascent. There were English, Germans, French,
Russians, and Italians, each speaking their own language,
and the largest party, oddly enough, was from
the United States. As I was myself travelling with
foreigners, and found my countrymen on Vesuvius unexpectedly,
the mixture of nations appeared still more
extraordinary. The combined heat of the sun and the
volcano beneath us, had compelled the Italians to
throw off half their dress, and they sat, or stood leaning
on their long pikes, with their brown faces and
dark eyes glowing with heat, as fine models of ruffians
as ever startled a traveller in this land of bandits.
Eight or ten of them were grouped around a crack in
the crater, roasting apples and toasting bread. There
were several of these cracks winding about in different
directions, of which I could barely endure the heat,
holding my hand at the top. A stick thrust in a foot
or more, was burnt black in a moment.

With another bottle or two of “lagrima Christi”
and a roasted apple, our courage was renewed, and we
picked our way across the old crater, sometimes lost
in the smoke which steamed up through the cracks,
and here and there treading on beautiful beds of crystals
of sulphur. The ascent of the new cone was
shorter but very difficult. The ashes were so new
and light, that it was like a steep sandbank, giving discouragingly
at the least pressure, and sinking till the
next step was taken. The steams of sulphur as we
approached the summit, were all but intolerable. The
ladies coughed, the guides sneezed and called on the
Madonna, and I never was more relieved than in
catching the first clear draught of wind on the top of
the mountain.

Here we all stood at last — crowded together on the

narrow edge of a crater formed within the year, and
liable every moment to be overwhelmed with burning
lava. There was scarce room to stand, and the hot
ashes burnt our feet as they sunk into it. The females
of each party sunk to the ground, and the common
danger and toil breaking down the usual stiff barrier
of silence between strangers, the conversation became
general, and the hour on the crater's edge passed
very agreeably.

A strong lad would just about throw a stone from
one side to the other of the new crater. It was about
forty feet deep, perhaps more, and one crust of sulphur
lined the whole. It was half the time obscured
in smoke, which poured in volumes from the broad
cracks with which it was divided in every direction,
and occasionally an eddy of wind was caught in the
vast bowl, and for a minute its bright yellow surface
was perfectly clear. There had not been an eruption
for four or five months, and the abyss which is for
years together a pit of fire and boiling lava, has had
time to harden over, and were it not for the smoking
seams, one would scarce suspect the existence of the
tremendous volcano slumbering beneath.

After we had been on the summit a few minutes, an
English clergyman of my acquaintance to our surprise
emerged from the smoke. He had been to the bottom
for specimens of sulphur for his cabinet. Contrary to
the advice of the guide, I profited by his experience,
and disappearing in the flying clouds, reached the lowest
depths of the crater with some difficulties of foothold
and breath. The cracks, which I crossed twice,
were so brittle as to break like the upper ice of a twice
frozen pond beneath my feet, and the stench of the exhaling
gases, was nauseating beyond all the sulphuretted
hydrogen I have ever known. The sensation was
painfully suffocating from the moment I entered the
crater. I broke off as many bits of the bright golden
crystals from the crust as my confusion and failing
strength would allow, and then remounted, feeling my
way up through the smoke to the summit.

I can compare standing on the top of Vesuvius and
looking down upon the bay and city of Naples, to
nothing but mounting a peak in the infernal regions
overlooking paradise. The larger crater encircles you
entirely for a mile, cutting off the view of the sides of
the mountain, and from the elevation of the new cone,
you look over the rising edge of this black field of smoke
and cinders, and drop the eye at once upon Naples,
lying asleep in the sun, with its lazy sails upon the
water, and the green hills enclosing it clad in the indescribable
beauty of an Italian atmosphere. Beyond
all comparison, by the testimony of every writer and
traveller, the most beautiful scene in the world, the
loveliest water, and the brightest land, lay spread out
before us. With the stench of hot sulphur in our
nostrils, ankle deep in black ashes, and a waste of
smouldering cinders in every direction around us, the
enjoyment of the view certainly did not want for the
heightening of contrast.

We made our descent by jumps through the sliding
ashes, frequently tumbling over each other, and retracing
in five minutes the toil of an hour. Our donkeys
stood tethered together on the herbless field of
cinders, and we were soon in the clumsy saddles, and
with a call at the hermitage, and a parting draught of
wine with the friar, we reached our carriages at the
little village of Resina in safety. The feet of the whole
troop were in a wretched condition. The ladies had
worn shoes, or slight boots, which were cut to pieces
of course, and one very fine-looking girl, the daughter
of an elderly French gentleman, had, with the usual
improvidence of her nation, started in satin slippers.
She was probably lamed for a month, as she insisted
on persevering, and wrapped her feet in handkerchiefs
to return.

We rode along the curve of the bay, by one of these
matchless sunsets of Italy, and arrived at Naples at
dark.

I have had the pleasure lately of making the acquaintance
of Mr. Mathias, the distinguished author of the
“Pursuits of Literature,” and the translator of Spenser
and other English poets into Italian. About twenty
years ago, this well-known scholar came to Italy on a
desperate experiment of health. Finding himself
better, almost against hope, he has remained from year
to year in Naples, in love with the climate and the
language, until, at this day, he belongs less to the
English than the Italian literature, having written
various original poems in Italian, and translated into
Italian verse to the wonder and admiration of the
scholars of the country. I found him this morning
at his lodgings, in an old palace on the Pizzofalcone,
buried in books as usual, and good-humored enough
to give an hour to a young man, who had no claim on
him beyond the ordinary interest in a distinguished
scholar. He talked a great deal of America naturally,
and expressed a very strong friendship for Mr. Everett,
whom he had met on his travels, requesting me at the
same time to take to him a set of his works as a remembrance.
Mr. Mathias is a small man, of perhaps sixty
years, perfectly bald, and a little inclined to corpulency.
His head is ample, and would make a fine picture of a
scholar. His voice is hurried and modest, and from
long residence in Italy his English is full of Italian
idioms. He spoke with rapture of Da Ponte, calling
me back as I shut the door to ask for him. It seemed
to give him uncommon pleasure that we appreciated
and valued him in America.

I have looked over, this evening, a small volume,
which he was kind enough to give me. It is entitled
“Lyric Poetry, by T. I. Mathias, a new edition, printed
privately.” It is dated 1832, and the poems were
probably all written within the last two years. The
shortest extract I can make is a “Sonnet to the Memory
of Gray,” which strikes me as very beautiful.

I have met also, at a dinner party lately, the celebrated
antiquary, Sir William Gell. He too lives
abroad. His work on Pompeii has become authority,
and displays very great learning. He is a tall, large-featured
man, and very commanding in his appearance,
though lamed terribly with the gout.

A friend, whom I met at the same house, took me
to see the archbishop of Tarento yesterday. This
venerable man, it is well known, lost his gown for his
participation in the cause of the Carbonari (the revolutionary
conspirators of Italy). He has always played
a conspicuous part in the politics of his time, and
now, at the age of ninety, unlike the usual fate of meddlers
in troubled waters, he is a healthy, happy, venerated
old man, surrounded in his palace with all that
luxury can give him. The lady who presented me,
took the privilege of intimate friendship to call at an
unusual hour, and we found the old churchman in his
slippers, over his breakfast, with two immense tortoiseshell
cats, upon stools, watching his hand for bits of
bread and purring most affectionately. He looks like
one of Titian's pictures. His face is a wreck of commanding

features, and his eye seems less to have lost
its fire, than to slumber in its deep socket. His hair
is snowy white — his forehead of prodigious breadth
and height — and his skin has that calm, settled, and
yet healthy paleness, which carries with it the history
of a whole life of temperance and thought.

The old man rose from his chair with a smile, and
came forward with a stoop and a feeble step, and took
my two hands, as my friend mentioned my name, and
looked me in the face very earnestly. “Your country,”
said he, in Italian, “has sprung into existence like
Minerva, full grown and armed. We look for the
result.” He went on with some comments upon the
dangers of republics, and then sent me to look at a portrait
of Queen Giovanna, of Naples, by Leonardo da
Vinci, while he sat down to talk with the lady who
brought me. His secretary accompanied me as a
cicerone. Five or six rooms, communicating with
each other were filled with choice pictures, every one
a gift from some distinguished individual. The present
king of France had sent him his portrait; Queen
Adelaide had sent a splendid set of Sèvres china, with
the portraits of her family; the queen of Belgium had
presented him with her miniature and that of Leopold;
the king and queen of Naples had half furnished his
house; and so the catalogue went on. It seemed as
if the whole continent had united to honor the old man.
While I was looking at a curious mosaic portrait of a
cat, presented to him on the death of the original, by
some prince whose name I have forgotten, he came to
us, and said he had just learned that my pursuits were
literary, and would present me with his own last work.
He opened the drawer of a small bureau and produced
a manuscript of some ten pages, written in a feeble
hand. “This,” said he, “is an enumeration from
memory of what I have not seen for many years, the
classic spots about our beautiful city of Naples, and
their associations. I have written it in the last month
to wile away the time, and call up again the pleasure
I have received many times in my life in visiting them.”
I put the curious document in my bosom with many
thanks, and we kissed the hand of the good old priest
and left him. We found his carriage, with three or
four servants in handsome livery, waiting for him in
the court below. We had intruded a little on the hour
for his morning ride.

I found his account of the environs merely a simple
catalogue, with here and there a classic quotation from
a Greek or Latin author, referring to them. I keep
the MS. as a curious memento of one of the noblest
relics I have seen of an age gone by.