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the volumes of smoke on the area below. We watched him from rock to rock, and with some anxiety observed the difficulties he had to contend with, as he mounted the precipices of lava; and we really congratulated him with the warm sympathy of fellow-travellers, when he joined us on the top. He said he had been nearly choked with the smoke, and had torn his hand sadly. Since the eruption of 1812, the fused lava has filled up the cylinder or funnel, so that he now walked over a crust, in which are vast gaps or crevices, vomiting sulphureous smoke. Beside the general danger of climbing rocks, the descent to the crater has the additional one of continual avalanches of friable rock, which we heard thundering down to the depths, added to the dread arising from the impossibility of escape, should a sudden eruption take place.

Salvadore was engaged to descend the next day with three English gentlemen, captains in the navy, who lodge at Mr. Reilly's, and he said that he meant to boil their eggs in the central cauldron of the mighty crater.

Our fellow traveller resembled Mr. B; he spoke English bookishly-Italian like a native-French equally well. We could not determine his nation, and in our uncertainty we made him a Pole. But we could not help smiling at the vanity which peeps out of poor human hearts, even in such stupendous scenes. "I think," said he, "I must have looked a pigmy down there;"-a man on the brink of a crater to be thinking how he looked!!

But Empedocles, perhaps, long ago had the same puerile vanity, though not purchased at so cheap a rate-passons cela. We lingered on the scene, and felt that probably we never again should behold one so astounding, until the elements should melt with fervent heat.

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Supported by my guide, and setting my heels firmly into the mass of cinders step after step, we slid down, and in lees than a quarter of an hour, were at the bottom of the cone. Now, although I had a few items to bring against the descent, in bar of its being 'un vrai plaisir," such as the constant bruising of one's legs by stones, which—like Scott's dwarf pursuing Cranstoun,

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were always at the base first; besides loads of cinders in one's shoes, making them of great weight, and not so easily soluble as the peas of the pilgrim of Loretto.

Those who live at the foot of the mountain at Resina, often feel a shake, when nothing is heard of it in Naples, and the rumbling within is always distinguishable to the

ear.

Of volcanic products, in the way of aëriform fluids, sulphuretted hydrogen gas and carbonic acid gas seem abundant; and it is thought that the sulphur is gradually formed from the decomposition of sulphuretted hydrogen gas, exhaled copiously through fissures.

Abundance of muriate of copper and iron, alum and gypsum, and sulphate of magnesia, are thrown from reservoirs. Iron, it is said, forms one-eighth part of the substance of the lava. We have several pieces of specular iron from the crater. It is the opinion of geologists, that augite and felspar compose the currents of solid lava, and that obsidian is felspar vitrified by fusion-that all volcanic rocks are composed of microscopic crystals-that pumice stone is formed by intense heat of the elements of felspar— is of a capillary texture, making it so light as to swim.

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Some white pumice is so compact, that a single pore is not visible to the eye.

In eruptions, prodigious masses of black pumice powder come out first; and when the eruption is nearly over, the white. It is here called "rapilli." The scoria, which we see everywhere, is a mass of light cellular lava.

Volcanic tufo is formed of powder, or ashes, thrown out of the crater, and mixed with larger fragments, and it is capable of being consolidated by water and pressure, and in this state is used for building; when very ferruginous, this powder is soft, and called pozzolana. It consolidates under water, and is used for all the roofs and tanks here.

We procured some boxes of minerals from Salvadore, and have dispatched them to England.

CHAPTER VII.

Elysian Fields-Baia-Cuma-Scipio's Tomb-The Cumaan Sybil

Scipio.

On the 10th of March, enjoying le beau soleil d'Italie, we determined to gather a flower in the Elysian fields. Passing Puteoli, and looking always with the deepest interest on that harbour where Paul landed, we proceeded by Monte Nuovo to the shores of Avernus, and from thence to the dark Acherontic stream, and thence to Baja.

Entering a boat, we glided deliciously across its bay, distinctly perceiving a variety of ruins beneath its clear

waters.

The castle of Baja rises nobly on its rocky shore, which we skirted to a second limpid gulph; and then landing at Bacola, and winding over a hill and through bye-paths, came at once upon the Elysian fields—the poetic region of rest and peace; and here, in truth, the cold blasts of winter are never felt. The still waters that lave the banks, reflect the beautiful forms of Ischia and Monte Procida; and vines and flowers environ the silent mansions.

"In no fixed place the happy souls reside,

In groves they live, and lie on mossy beds,

By crystal streams that murmur through the meads;

But pass yon easy hill, and thence descend,

The path conducts you to your journey's end.

LETHEAN GULPH.

Now in a secret vale, behold and see

A separate grove, through which a gentle breeze

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Plays with a passing breath, and whispers through the trees:

And just before the confines of the wood

The gliding Lethe leads her silent flood.

The souls that throng the flood

Are those to whom by fate are other bodies owed;

In Lethe's lake they long oblivion taste,

Of future life secure, forgetful of the past."

As I took my solitary walk on this Lethean gulph, I was not surprised that such a scene should have attuned the harp of the great Mantuan bard. The tombs of noble Romans, with the tenantless places of their cinerary urns, declare that once their ashes were here. I had never dreamt that, in the Elysian fields, I should really find a spot where man had mingled with his original dust;nor reflected that if departed spirits ever wandered near their mortal part, they must indeed have once hovered near this poetic blissful seat-and I felt as if I had injured poesy, in my suspicions of its delusions. Nature has thrown its clustering vines over these mansions, and the dust of the Romans seems to spring again into being, in the lovely flowers that enamel and decorate the scene. The tombs are ranged beneath the rich foliage of a vineyard, facing the Lethean gulph, now called the Mare Morte." A large vaulted chamber is formed in the rock— its walls and sides are lined with places for the cinerary urns. Similar vaults follow in succession along the bank ; they seemed so isolated—so bereaved-so like the habitation of human hearts, the tenderest ties of which are snapped for ever.

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We then ascended the hill, and looked towards all those points rendered so famous by the Mantuan lyre. It was

VOL. II.

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