rickled down hill at the rate of about a mile an hour. The
adventurous pair of Englishmen were successful in their quest, and Sir
William thus describes the fountain-head of the fiery streams that he
found a quarter of a mile distant from the top of the cone.

"The liquid and red-hot matter bubbled up violently, with a hissing and
crackling noise, like that which attends the playing off of an artificial
firework; and by the continued splashing up of the vitrified matter, a
kind of arch, or dome, was formed over the crevice from whence the lava
issued; it was cracked in many parts, and appeared red-hot within, like a
heated oven. This hollowed hillock might be about fifteen feet high, and
the lava that ran from under it was received into a regular channel,
raised upon a sort of wall of scoriae and cinders, almost perpendicularly,
of about a height of eight or ten feet, resembling much an ancient
aqueduct."

Some days later, at midnight on August 7th, a veritable fountain of red
fire shot up from the crest of Vesuvius, illuminating all the surrounding
country; and on the following night a still more marvellous sheet of flame
appeared, hanging like a fiery veil between heaven and earth, and reaching
to a height (so Sir William Hamilton guessed) of about 10,000 feet above
the summit, affording a wonderfully grand but terrible spectacle. This
great curtain of fiery particles, accompanied by inky black clouds from
which were darting continual flashes of lightning, was reflected clearly
on the smooth surface of the Bay, delighting the Court and the scientific
world of Naples, but inspiring, as may well be imagined, the mass of
superstitious inhabitants with the direst alarm. The theatres were closed
and the churches were opened; above the rumblings and explosions of the
agonised volcano could be heard the tolling of the bells. Maddened by
terror, the Neapolitan mob rushed to the Archbishop's palace to demand the
immediate production of the holy relics of St Januarius, the protector of
the city, and on this request being refused, set fire to the entrance
gates, a forcible argument that soon persuaded his Eminence of the
propriety of the people's demand. Thereupon the head of the Saint,
enclosed in its case of solid silver, was accordingly borne in solemn
procession with wailing and repentant crowds behind it to an improvised
shrine, hung with garlands, on the Ponte della Maddalena, at the extreme
eastern boundary of the city. N