as bearing it away from us, unfortunately
veiled the interior of the crater, which smoked all round from a
thousand crannies. At intervals, however, we caught sight through the
smoke of the cracked walls of the rock. The view was neither instructive
nor delightful; but for the very reason that one saw nothing, one
lingered in the hope of catching a glimpse of something more; and so we
forgot our slow counting. We were standing on a narrow ridge of the
vast abyss; of a sudden the thunder pealed aloud; we ducked our heads
involuntarily, as if that would have rescued us from the precipitated
masses. The smaller stones soon rattled, and without considering that we
had again an interval of cessation before us, and only too much rejoiced
to have outstood the danger, we rushed down and reached the foot of the
hill together with the drizzling ashes, which pretty thickly covered
our heads and shoulders....
The news [two weeks later] that an eruption of lava had just commenced,
which, taking the direction of Ottajano, was invisible at Naples,
tempted me to visit Vesuvius for the third time. Scarcely had I jumped
out of my cabriolet at the foot of the mountain, when immediately
appeared the two guides who had accompanied us on our previous ascent. I
had no wish to do without either, but took one out of gratitude and
custom, the other for reliance on his judgment--and the two for the
greater convenience. Having ascended the summit, the older guide
remained with our cloaks and refreshment, while the younger followed me,
and we boldly went straight toward a dense volume of smoke, which broke
forth from the bottom of the funnel; then we quickly went downward by
the side of it, till at last, under the clear heaven, we distinctly saw
the lava emitted from the rolling clouds of smoke.
We may hear an object spoken of a thousand times, but its peculiar
features will never be caught till we see it with our own eyes. The
stream of lava was small, not broader perhaps than ten feet, but the way
in which it flowed down a gentle and tolerably smooth plain was
remarkable. As it flowed along, it cooled both on the sides and on the
surface, so that it formed a sort of canal, the bed of which was
continually raised in consequence of the molten mass congealing even
beneath the fiery stream, which, with uniform action, precipitated right
and left the scoria which were floating on its surface. In this way a
regular dam was at length thrown up, in wh
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