Part 12

Old women abound in Ravenna; at least, she was not young who showed us the mausoleum of Galla Placidia. Placidia was also prudent and foreseeing, and built this once magnificent sepulcher for her own occupation. It is in the form of a Latin cross, forty-six feet in length by about forty in width. The floor is paved with rich marbles; the cupola is covered with mosaics of the time of the empress; and in the arch over the door is a fine representation of the Good Shepherd. Behind the altar is the massive sarcophagus of marble (its cover of silver plates was long ago torn off) in which are literally the ashes of the empress. She was immured in it as a mummy, in a sitting position, clothed in imperial robes; and there the ghastly corpse sat in a cypress-wood chair, to be looked at by anybody who chose to peep through the aperture, for more than eleven hundred years, till one day, in 1577, some children introduced a lighted candle, perhaps out of compassion for her who sat so long in darkness, when her clothes caught fire, and she was burned up,--a warning to all children not to play with a dead and dry empress. In this resting-place are also the tombs of Honorius II., her brother, of Constantius III., her second husband, and of Honoria, her daughter.

There are no other undisturbed tombs of the Caesars in existence. Hers is almost the last, and the very small last, of a great succession. What thoughts of a great empire in ruins do not force themselves on one in the confined walls of this little chamber! What a woman was she whose ashes lie there! She saw and aided the ruin of the empire; but it may be said of her, that her vices were greater than her misfortunes. And what a story is her life! Born to the purple, educated in the palace at Constantinople, accomplished but not handsome, at the age of twenty she was in Rome when Alaric besieged it. Carried off captive by the Goths, she became the not unwilling object of the passion of King Adolphus, who at length married her at Narbonne. At the nuptials the king, in a Roman habit, occupied a seat lower than hers, while she sat on a throne habited as a Roman empress, and received homage. Fifty handsome youths bore to her in each hand a dish of gold, one filled with coin, and the other with precious stones,--a small part only, these hundred vessels of treasure, of the spoils the Goths brought from her country. When Adolphus, who never abated his fondness for his Roman bride, was assassinated at Barcelona, she was treated like a slave by his assassins, and driven twelve miles on foot before the horse of his murderer. Ransomed at length for six hundred thousand measures of wheat by her brother Honorius, who handed her over struggling to Constantius, one of his generals. But, once married, her reluctance ceased; and she set herself to advance the interests of herself and husband, ruling him as she had done the first one. Her purpose was accomplished when he was declared joint emperor with Honorius. He died shortly after; and scandalous stories of her intimacy with her brother caused her removal to Constantinople; but she came back again, and reigned long as the regent of her son, Valentinian III.,--a feeble youth, who never grew to have either passions or talents, and was very likely, as was said, enervated by his mother in dissolute indulgence, so that she might be supreme. But she died at Rome in 450, much praised for her orthodoxy and her devotion to the Trinity. And there was her daughter, Honoria, who ran off with a chamberlain, and afterward offered to throw herself into the arms of Attila who wouldn't take her as a gift at first, but afterward demanded her, and fought to win her and her supposed inheritance. But they were a bad lot altogether; and it is no credit to a Christian of the nineteenth century to stay in this tomb so long.

Near this mausoleum is the magnificent Basilica of St. Vitale, built in the reign of Justinian, and consecrated in 547, I was interested to see it because it was erected in confessed imitation of St. Sophia at Constantinople, is in the octagonal form, and has all the accessories of Eastern splendor, according to the architectural authorities. Its effect is really rich and splendid; and it rather dazzled us with its maze of pillars, its upper and lower columns, its galleries, complicated capitals, arches on arches, and Byzantine intricacies. To the student of the very early ecclesiastical art, it must be an object of more interest than even of wonder. But what I cared most to see were the mosaics in the choir, executed in the time of Justinian, and as fresh and beautiful as on the day they were made. The mosaics and the exquisite arabesques on the roof of the choir, taken together, are certainly unequaled by any other early church decoration I have seen; and they are as interesting as they are beautiful. Any description of them is impossible; but mention may be made of two characteristic groups, remarkable for execution, and having yet a deeper interest.

In one compartment of the tribune is the figure of the Emperor Justinian, holding a vase with consecrated offerings, and surrounded by courtiers and soldiers. Opposite is the figure of the Empress Theodora, holding a similar vase, and attended by ladies of her court. There is a refinement and an elegance about the empress, a grace and sweet dignity, that is fascinating. This is royalty,--stately and cold perhaps: even the mouth may be a little cruel, I begin to perceive, as I think of her; but she wears the purple by divine right. I have not seen on any walls any figure walking out of history so captivating as this lady, who would seem to have been worthy of apotheosis in a Christian edifice. Can there be any doubt that this lovely woman was orthodox? She, also, has a story, which you doubtless have been recalling as you read. Is it worth while to repeat even its outlines? This charming regal woman was the daughter of the keeper of the bears in the circus at Constantinople; and she early went upon the stage as a pantomimist and buffoon. She was beautiful, with regular features, a little pale, but with a tinge of natural color, vivacious eyes, and an easy motion that displayed to advantage the graces of her small but elegant figure. I can see all that in the mosaic. But she sold her charms to whoever cared to buy them in Constantinople; she led a life of dissipation that cannot be even hinted at in these days; she went off to Egypt as the concubine of a general; was deserted, and destitute even to misery in Cairo; wandered about a vagabond in many Eastern cities, and won the reputation everywhere of the most beautiful courtesan of her time; reappeared in Constantinople; and, having, it is said, a vision of her future, suddenly took to a pretension of virtue and plain sewing; contrived to gain the notice of Justinian, to inflame his passions as she did those of all the world besides, to captivate him into first an alliance, and at length a marriage. The emperor raised her to an equal seat with himself on his throne; and she was worshiped as empress in that city where she had been admired as harlot. And on the throne she was a wise woman, courageous and chaste; and had her palaces on the Bosphorus; and took good care of her beauty, and indulged in the pleasures of a good table; had ministers who kissed her feet; a crowd of women and eunuchs in her secret chambers, whose passions she indulged; was avaricious and sometimes cruel; and founded a convent for the irreclaimably bad of her own sex, some of whom liked it, and some of whom threw themselves into the sea in despair; and when she died was an irreparable loss to her emperor. So that it seems to me it is a pity that the historian should say that she was devout, but a little heretic.

A HIGH DAY IN ROME

PALM SUNDAY IN ST. PETER'S

The splendid and tiresome ceremonies of Holy Week set in; also the rain, which held up for two days. Rome without the sun, and with rain and the bone-penetrating damp cold of the season, is a wretched place. Squalor and ruins and cheap splendor need the sun; the galleries need it; the black old masters in the dark corners of the gaudy churches need it; I think scarcely anything of a cardinal's big, blazing footman, unless the sun shines on him, and radiates from his broad back and his splendid calves; the models, who get up in theatrical costumes, and get put into pictures, and pass the world over for Roman peasants (and beautiful many of them are), can't sit on the Spanish Stairs in indolent pose when it rains; the streets are slimy and horrible; the carriages try to run over you, and stand a very good chance of succeeding, where there are no sidewalks, and you are limping along on the slippery round cobble-stones; you can't get into the country, which is the best part of Rome: but when the sun shines all this is changed; the dear old dirty town exercises, its fascinations on you then, and you speedily forget your recent misery.

Holy Week is a vexation to most people. All the world crowds here to see its exhibitions and theatrical shows, and works hard to catch a glimpse of them, and is tired out, if not disgusted, at the end. The things to see and hear are Palm Sunday in St. Peter's; singing of the Miserere by the pope's choir on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in the Sistine Chapel; washing of the pilgrims' feet in a chapel of St. Peter's, and serving the apostles at table by the pope on Thursday, with a papal benediction from the balcony afterwards; Easter Sunday, with the illumination of St. Peter's in the evening; and fireworks (this year in front of St. Peter's in Montorio) Monday evening. Raised seats are built up about the high altar under the dome in St. Peter's, which will accommodate a thousand, and perhaps more, ladies; and for these tickets are issued without numbers, and for twice as many as they will seat. Gentlemen who are in evening dress are admitted to stand in the reserved places inside the lines of soldiers. For the Miserere in the Sistine Chapel tickets are also issued. As there is only room for about four hundred ladies, and a thousand and more tickets are given out, you may imagine the scramble. Ladies go for hours before the singing begins, and make a grand rush when the doors are open. I do not know any sight so unseemly and cruel as a crowd of women intent on getting in to such a ceremony: they are perfectly rude and unmerciful to each other. They push and trample one another under foot; veils and dresses are torn; ladies faint away in the scrimmage, and only the strongest and most unscrupulous get in. I have heard some say, who have been in the pellmell, that, not content with elbowing and pushing and pounding, some women even stick pins into those who are in the way. I hope this latter is not true; but it is certain that the conduct of most of the women is brutal. A weak or modest or timid woman stands no more chance than she would in a herd of infuriated Campagna cattle. The same scenes are enacted in the efforts to see the pope wash feet, and serve at the table. For the possession of the seats under the dome on Palm Sunday and Easter there is a like crush. The ceremonies do not begin until half-past nine; but ladies go between five and six o'clock in the morning, and when the passages are open they make a grand rush. The seats, except those saved for the nobility, are soon all taken, and the ladies who come after seven are lucky if they can get within the charmed circle, and find a spot to sit down on a campstool. They can then see only a part of the proceedings, and have a weary, exhausting time of it for hours. This year Rome is more crowded than ever before. There are American ladies enough to fill all the reserved places; and I fear they are energetic enough to get their share of them.

It rained Sunday; but there was a steady stream of people and carriages all the morning pouring over the Bridge of St. Angelo, and discharging into the piazza of St. Peter's. It was after nine when I arrived on the ground. There was a crowd of carriages under the colonnades, and a heavy fringe in front of them; but the hundreds of people moving over the piazza, and up the steps to the entrances, made only the impression of dozens in the vast space. I do not know if there are people enough in Rome to fill St. Peter's; certainly there was no appearance of a crowd as we entered, although they had been pouring in all the morning, and still thronged the doors. I heard a traveler say that he followed ten thousand soldiers into the church, and then lost them from sight: they disappeared in the side chapels. He did not make his affidavit as to the number of soldiers. The interior area of the building is not much greater than the square of St. Mark in Venice. To go into the great edifice is almost like going outdoors. Lines of soldiers kept a wide passage clear from the front door away down to the high altar; and there was a good mass of spectators on the outside. The tribunes for the ladies, built up under the dome, were of course, filled with masses of ladies in solemn black; and there was more or less of a press of people surging about in that vicinity. Thousands of people were also roaming about in the great spaces of the edifice; but there was nowhere else anything like a crowd. It had very much the appearance of a large fair-ground, with little crowds about favorite booths. Gentlemen in dress-coats were admitted to the circle under the dome. The pope's choir was stationed in a gallery there opposite the high altar. Back of the altar was a wide space for the dignitaries; seats were there, also, for ambassadors and those born to the purple; and the pope's seat was on a raised dais at the end. Outsiders could see nothing of what went on within there; and the ladies under the dome could only partially see, in the seats they had fought so gallantly to obtain.

St. Peter's is a good place for grand processions and ceremonies; but it is a poor one for viewing them. A procession which moves down the nave is hidden by the soldiers who stand on either side, or is visible only by sections as it passes: there is no good place to get the grand effect of the masses of color, and the total of the gorgeous pageantry. I should like to see the display upon a grand stage, and enjoy it in a coup d'oeil. It is a fine study of color and effect, and the groupings are admirable; but the whole affair is nearly lost to the mass of spectators. It must be a sublime feeling to one in the procession to walk about in such monstrous fine clothes; but what would his emotions be if more people could see him! The grand altar stuck up under the dome not only breaks the effect of what would be the fine sweep of the nave back to the apse, but it cuts off all view of the celebration of the mass behind it, and, in effect, reduces what should be the great point of display in the church to a mere chapel. And when you add to that the temporary tribunes erected under the dome for seating the ladies, the entire nave is shut off from a view of the gorgeous ceremony of high mass. The effect would be incomparable if one could stand in the door, or anywhere in the nave, and, as in other churches, look down to the end upon a great platform, with the high altar and all the sublime spectacle in full view, with the blaze of candles and the clouds of incense rising in the distance.

At half-past nine the great doors opened, and the procession began, in slow and stately moving fashion, to enter. One saw a throng of ecclesiastics in robes and ermine; the white plumes of the Guard Noble; the pages and chamberlains in scarlet; other pages, or what not, in black short-clothes, short swords, gold chains, cloak hanging from the shoulder, and stiff white ruffs; thirty-six cardinals in violet robes, with high miter-shaped white silk hats, that looked not unlike the pasteboard “trainer-caps” that boys wear when they play soldier; crucifixes, and a blazoned banner here and there; and, at last, the pope, in his red chair, borne on the shoulders of red lackeys, heaving along in a sea-sicky motion, clad in scarlet and gold, with a silver miter on his head, feebly making the papal benediction with two upraised fingers, and moving his lips in blessing. As the pope came in, a supplementary choir of men and soprano hybrids, stationed near the door, set up a high, welcoming song, or chant, which echoed rather finely through the building. All the music of the day is vocal.

The procession having reached its destination, and disappeared behind the altar of the dome, the pope dismounted, and took his seat on his throne. The blessing of the palms began, the cardinals first approaching, and afterwards the members of the diplomatic corps, the archbishops and bishops, the heads of the religious orders, and such private persons as have had permission to do so. I had previously seen the palms carried in by servants in great baskets. It is, perhaps, not necessary to say that they are not the poetical green waving palms, but stiff sort of wands, woven out of dry, yellow, split palm-leaves, sometimes four or five feet in length, braided into the semblance of a crown on top,--a kind of rough basket-work. The palms having been blessed, a procession was again formed down the nave and out the door, all in it “carrying palms in their hands,” the yellow color of which added a new element of picturesqueness to the splendid pageant. The pope was carried as before, and bore in his hand a short braided palm, with gold woven in, flowers added, and the monogram “I. H. S.” worked in the top. It is the pope's custom to give this away when the ceremony is over. Last year he presented it to an American lady, whose devotion attracted him; this year I saw it go away in a gilded coach in the hands of an ecclesiastic. The procession disappeared through the great portal into the vestibule, and the door closed. In a moment somebody knocked three times on the door: it opened, and the procession returned, and moved again to the rear of the altar, the singers marching with it and chanting. The cardinals then changed their violet for scarlet robes; and high mass, for an hour, was celebrated by a cardinal priest: and I was told that it was the pope's voice that we heard, high and clear, singing the passion. The choir made the responses, and performed at intervals. The singing was not without a certain power; indeed, it was marvelous how some of the voices really filled the vast spaces of the edifice, and the choruses rolled in solemn waves of sound through the arches. The singing, with the male sopranos, is not to my taste; but it cannot be denied that it had a wild and strange effect.

While this was going on behind the altar, the people outside were wandering about, looking at each other, and on the watch not to miss any of the shows of the day. People were talking, chattering, and greeting each other as they might do in the street. Here and there somebody was kneeling on the pavement, unheeding the passing throng. At several of the chapels, services were being conducted; and there was a large congregation, an ordinary church full, about each of them. But the most of those present seemed to regard it as a spectacle only; and as a display of dress, costumes, and nationalities it was almost unsurpassed. There are few more wonderful sights in this world than an Englishwoman in what she considers full dress. An English dandy is also a pleasing object. For my part, as I have hinted, I like almost as well as anything the big footmen,--those in scarlet breeches and blue gold-embroidered coats. I stood in front of one of the fine creations for some time, and contemplated him as one does the Farnese Hercules. One likes to see to what a splendor his species can come, even if the brains have all run down into the calves of the legs. There were also the pages, the officers of the pope's household, in costumes of the Middle Ages; the pope's Swiss guard in the showy harlequin uniform designed by Michael Angelo; the foot-soldiers in white short-clothes, which threatened to burst, and let them fly into pieces; there were fine ladies and gentlemen, loafers and loungers, from every civilized country, jabbering in all the languages; there were beggars in rags, and boors in coats so patched that there was probably none of the original material left; there were groups of peasants from the Campagna, the men in short jackets and sheepskin breeches with the wool side out, the women with gay-colored folded cloths on their heads, and coarse woolen gowns; a squad of wild-looking Spanish gypsies, burning-eyed, olive-skinned, hair long, black, crinkled, and greasy, as wild in raiment as in face; priests and friars, Zouaves in jaunty light gray and scarlet; rags and velvets, silks and serge cloths,--a cosmopolitan gathering poured into the world's great place of meeting,--a fine religious Vanity Fair on Sunday.

There came an impressive moment in all this confusion, a point of august solemnity. Up to that instant, what with chanting and singing the many services, and the noise of talking and walking, there was a wild babel. But at the stroke of the bell and the elevation of the Host, down went the muskets of the guard with one clang on the marble; the soldiers kneeled; the multitude in the nave, in the aisles, at all the chapels, kneeled; and for a minute in that vast edifice there was perfect stillness: if the whole great concourse had been swept from the earth, the spot where it lately was could not have been more silent. And then the military order went down the line, the soldiers rose, the crowd rose, and the mass and the hum went on.

It was all over before one; and the pope was borne out again, and the vast crowd began to discharge itself. But it was a long time before the carriages were all filled and rolled off. I stood for a half hour watching the stream go by,--the pompous soldiers, the peasants and citizens, the dazzling equipages, and jaded, exhausted women in black, who had sat or stood half a day under the dome, and could get no carriage; and the great state coaches of the cardinals, swinging high in the air, painted and gilded, with three noble footmen hanging on behind each, and a cardinal's broad face in the window.

VESUVIUS

CLIMBING A VOLCANO

Everybody who comes to Naples,--that is, everybody except the lady who fell from her horse the other day at Resina and injured her shoulder, as she was mounting for the ascent,--everybody, I say, goes up Vesuvius, and nearly every one writes impressions and descriptions of the performance. If you believe the tales of travelers, it is an undertaking of great hazard, an experience of frightful emotions. How unsafe it is, especially for ladies, I heard twenty times in Naples before I had been there a day. Why, there was a lady thrown from her horse and nearly killed, only a week ago; and she still lay ill at the next hotel, a witness of the truth of the story. I imagined her plunged down a precipice of lava, or pitched over the lip of the crater, and only rescued by the devotion of a gallant guide, who threatened to let go of her if she didn't pay him twenty francs instantly. This story, which will live and grow for years in this region, a waxing and never-waning peril of the volcano, I found, subsequently, had the foundation I have mentioned above. The lady did go to Resina in order to make the ascent of Vesuvius, mounted a horse there, fell off, being utterly unhorsewomanly, and hurt herself; but her injury had no more to do with Vesuvius than it had with the entrance of Victor Emanuel into Naples, which took place a couple of weeks after. Well, as I was saying, it is the fashion to write descriptions of Vesuvius; and you might as well have mine, which I shall give to you in rough outline.

There came a day when the Tramontane ceased to blow down on us the cold air of the snowy Apennines, and the white cap of Vesuvius, which is, by the way, worn generally like the caps of the Neapolitans, drifted inland instead of toward the sea. Warmer weather had come to make the bright sunshine no longer a mockery. For some days I had been getting the gauge of the mountain. With its white plume it is a constant quantity in the landscape: one sees it from every point of view; and we had been scarcely anywhere that volcanic remains, or signs of such action,--a thin crust shaking under our feet, as at Solfatara, where blasts of sulphurous steam drove in our faces,--did not remind us that the whole ground is uncertain, and undermined by the subterranean fires that have Vesuvius for a chimney. All the coast of the bay, within recent historic periods, in different spots at different times, has risen and sunk and risen again, in simple obedience to the pulsations of the great fiery monster below. It puffs up or sinks, like the crust of a baking apple-pie. This region is evidently not done; and I think it not unlikely it may have to be turned over again before it is. We had seen where Herculaneum lies under the lava and under the town of Resina; we had walked those clean and narrow streets of Pompeii, and seen the workmen picking away at the imbedded gravel, sand, and ashes which still cover nearly two thirds of the nice little, tight little Roman city; we had looked at the black gashes on the mountain-sides, where the lava streams had gushed and rolled and twisted over vineyards and villas and villages; and we decided to take a nearer look at the immediate cause of all this abnormal state of things.

In the morning when I awoke the sun was just rising behind Vesuvius; and there was a mighty display of gold and crimson in that quarter, as if the curtain was about to be lifted on a grand performance, say a ballet at San Carlo, which is the only thing the Neapolitans think worth looking at. Straight up in the air, out of the mountain, rose a white pillar, spreading out at the top like a palm-tree, or, to compare it to something I have seen, to the Italian pines, that come so picturesquely into all these Naples pictures. If you will believe me, that pillar of steam was like a column of fire, from the sun shining on and through it, and perhaps from the reflection of the background of crimson clouds and blue and gold sky, spread out there and hung there in royal and extravagant profusion, to make a highway and a regal gateway, through which I could just then see coming the horses and the chariot of a southern perfect day. They said that the tree-shaped cloud was the sign of an eruption; but the hotel-keepers here are always predicting that. The eruption is usually about two or three weeks distant; and the hotel proprietors get this information from experienced guides, who observe the action of the water in the wells; so that there can be no mistake about it.

We took carriages at nine o'clock to Resina, a drive of four miles, and one of exceeding interest, if you wish to see Naples life. The way is round the curving bay by the sea; but so continuously built up is it, and so inclosed with high walls of villas, through the open gates of which the golden oranges gleam, that you seem never to leave the city. The streets and quays swarm with the most vociferous, dirty, multitudinous life. It is a drive through Rag Fair. The tall, whitey-yellow houses fronting the water, six, seven, eight stories high, are full as beehives; people are at all the open windows; garments hang from the balconies and from poles thrust out; up every narrow, gloomy, ascending street are crowds of struggling human shapes; and you see how like herrings in a box are packed the over half a million people of Naples. In front of the houses are the markets in the open air,--fish, vegetables, carts of oranges; in the sun sit women spinning from distaffs or weaving fishing-nets; and rows of children who were never washed and never clothed but once, and whose garments have nearly wasted away; beggars, fishermen in red caps, sailors, priests, donkeys, fruit-venders, street-musicians, carriages, carts, two-wheeled break-down vehicles,--the whole tangled in one wild roar and rush and babel,--a shifting, varied panorama of color, rags,--a pandemonium such as the world cannot show elsewhere, that is what one sees on the road to Resina. The drivers all drive in the streets here as if they held a commission from the devil, cracking their whips, shouting to their horses, and dashing into the thickest tangle with entire recklessness. They have one cry, used alike for getting more speed out of their horses or for checking them, or in warning to the endangered crowds on foot. It is an exclamatory grunt, which may be partially expressed by the letters “a-e-ugh.” Everybody shouts it, mule-driver, “coachee,” or cattle-driver; and even I, a passenger, fancied I could do it to disagreeable perfection after a time. Out of this throng in the streets I like to select the meek, patient, diminutive little donkeys, with enormous panniers that almost hide them. One would have a woman seated on top, with a child in one pannier and cabbages in the other; another, with an immense stock of market-greens on his back, or big baskets of oranges, or with a row of wine-casks and a man seated behind, adhering, by some unknown law of adhesion, to the sloping tail. Then there was the cart drawn by one diminutive donkey, or by an ox, or by an ox and a donkey, or by a donkey and horse abreast, never by any possibility a matched team. And, funniest of all, was the high, two-wheeled caleche, with one seat, and top thrown back, with long thills and poor horse. Upon this vehicle were piled, Heaven knows how, behind, before, on the thills, and underneath the high seat, sometimes ten, and not seldom as many as eighteen people, men, women, and children,--all in flaunting rags, with a colored scarf here and there, or a gay petticoat, or a scarlet cap,--perhaps a priest, with broad black hat, in the center,--driving along like a comet, the poor horse in a gallop, the bells on his ornamented saddle merrily jingling, and the whole load in a roar of merriment.

But we shall never get to Vesuvius at this rate. I will not even stop to examine the macaroni manufactories on the road. The long strips of it were hung out on poles to dry in the streets, and to get a rich color from the dirt and dust, to say nothing of its contact with the filthy people who were making it. I am very fond of macaroni. At Resina we take horses for the ascent. We had sent ahead for a guide and horses for our party of ten; but we found besides, I should think, pretty nearly the entire population of the locality awaiting us, not to count the importunate beggars, the hags, male and female, and the ordinary loafers of the place. We were besieged to take this and that horse or mule, to buy walking-sticks for the climb, to purchase lava cut into charms, and veritable ancient coins, and dug-up cameos, all manufactured for the demand. One wanted to hold the horse, or to lead it, to carry a shawl, or to show the way. In the midst of infinite clamor and noise, we at last got mounted, and, turning into a narrow lane between high walls, began the ascent, our cavalcade attended by a procession of rags and wretchedness up through the village. Some of them fell off as we rose among the vineyards, and they found us proof against begging; but several accompanied us all day, hoping that, in some unguarded moment, they could do us some slight service, and so establish a claim on us. Among these I noticed some stout fellows with short ropes, with which they intended to assist us up the steeps. If I looked away an instant, some urchin would seize my horse's bridle; and when I carelessly let my stick fall on his hand, in token for him to let go, he would fall back with an injured look, and grasp the tail, from which I could only loosen him by swinging my staff and preparing to break his head.

The ascent is easy at first between walls and the vineyards which produce the celebrated Lachryma Christi. After a half hour we reached and began to cross the lava of 1858, and the wild desolation and gloom of the mountain began to strike us. One is here conscious of the titanic forces at work. Sometimes it is as if a giant had ploughed the ground, and left the furrows without harrowing them to harden into black and brown stone. We could see again how the broad stream, flowing down, squeezed and squashed like mud, had taken all fantastic shapes,--now like gnarled tree roots; now like serpents in a coil; here the human form, or a part of it,--a torso or a limb,--in agony; now in other nameless convolutions and contortions, as if heaved up and twisted in fiery pain and suffering,--for there was almost a human feeling in it; and again not unlike stone billows. We could see how the cooling crust had been lifted and split and turned over by the hot stream underneath, which, continually oozing from the rent of the eruption, bore it down and pressed it upward. Even so low as the point where we crossed the lava of 1858 were fissures whence came hot air.

An hour brought us to the resting-place called the Hermitage, an osteria and observatory established by the government. Standing upon the end of a spur, it seems to be safe from the lava, whose course has always been on either side; but it must be an uncomfortable place in a shower of stones and ashes. We rode half an hour longer on horseback, on a nearly level path, to the foot of the steep ascent, the base of the great crater. This ride gave us completely the wide and ghastly desolation of the mountain, the ruin that the lava has wrought upon slopes that were once green with vine and olive, and busy with the hum of life. This black, contorted desert waste is more sterile and hopeless than any mountain of stone, because the idea of relentless destruction is involved here. This great hummocked, sloping plain, ridged and seamed, was all about us, without cheer or relaxation of grim solitude. Before us rose, as black and bare, what the guides call the mountain, and which used to be the crater. Up one side is worked in the lava a zigzag path, steep, but not very fatiguing, if you take it slowly. Two thirds of the way up, I saw specks of people climbing. Beyond it rose the cone of ashes, out of which the great cloud of sulphurous smoke rises and rolls night and day now. On the very edge of that, on the lip of it, where the smoke rose, I also saw human shapes; and it seemed as if they stood on the brink of Tartarus and in momently imminent peril.

We left our horses in a wild spot, where scorched boulders had fallen upon the lava bed; and guides and boys gathered about us like cormorants: but, declining their offers to pull us up, we began the ascent, which took about three quarters of an hour. We were then on the summit, which is, after all, not a summit at all, but an uneven waste, sloping away from the Cone in the center. This sloping lava waste was full of little cracks,--not fissures with hot lava in them, or anything of the sort,--out of which white steam issued, not unlike the smoke from a great patch of burned timber; and the wind blew it along the ground towards us. It was cool, for the sun was hidden by light clouds, but not cold. The ground under foot was slightly warm. I had expected to feel some dread, or shrinking, or at least some sense of insecurity, but I did not the slightest, then or afterwards; and I think mine is the usual experience. I had no more sense of danger on the edge of the crater than I had in the streets of Naples.

We next addressed ourselves to the Cone, which is a loose hill of ashes and sand,--a natural slope, I should say, of about one and a half to one, offering no foothold. The climb is very fatiguing, because you sink in to the ankles, and slide back at every step; but it is short,--we were up in six to eight minutes,--though the ladies, who had been helped a little by the guides, were nearly exhausted, and sank down on the very edge of the crater, with their backs to the smoke. What did we see? What would you see if you looked into a steam boiler? We stood on the ashy edge of the crater, the sharp edge sloping one way down the mountain, and the other into the bowels, whence the thick, stifling smoke rose. We rolled stones down, and heard them rumbling for half a minute. The diameter of the crater on the brink of which we stood was said to be an eighth of a mile; but the whole was completely filled with vapor. The edge where we stood was quite warm.

We ate some rolls we had brought in our pockets, and some of the party tried a bottle of the wine that one of the cormorants had brought up, but found it anything but the Lachryma Christi it was named. We looked with longing eyes down into the vapor-boiling caldron; we looked at the wide and lovely view of land and sea; we tried to realize our awful situation, munched our dry bread, and laughed at the monstrous demands of the vagabonds about us for money, and then turned and went down quicker than we came up.

We had chosen to ascend to the old crater rather than to the new one of the recent eruption on the side of the mountain, where there is nothing to be seen. When we reached the bottom of the Cone, our guide led us to the north side, and into a region that did begin to look like business. The wind drove all the smoke round there, and we were half stifled with sulphur fumes to begin with. Then the whole ground was discolored red and yellow, and with many more gay and sulphur-suggesting colors. And it actually had deep fissures in it, over which we stepped and among which we went, out of which came blasts of hot, horrid vapor, with a roaring as if we were in the midst of furnaces. And if we came near the cracks the heat was powerful in our faces, and if we thrust our sticks down them they were instantly burned; and the guides cooked eggs; and the crust was thin, and very hot to our boots; and half the time we couldn't see anything; and we would rush away where the vapor was not so thick, and, with handkerchiefs to our mouths, rush in again to get the full effect. After we came out again into better air, it was as if we had been through the burning, fiery furnace, and had the smell of it on our garments. And, indeed, the sulphur had changed to red certain of our clothes, and noticeably my pantaloons and the black velvet cap of one of the ladies; and it was some days before they recovered their color. But, as I say, there was no sense of danger in the adventure.