Volcano that could sweep them all, in a moment, from the face of the earth.

But the Populace of Naples possess a tranquillizing faith, unknown to Protestant Communities. They can delegate their lives and fortunes to the care of San Gennaro, secure in the watchful protection of the Saint. He is stationed upon a bridge, between the town and the Mountain, where he extends his right hand to stay the furious Volcano, with a look that seems to threaten it for daring to disturb the good People of Naples, the worthy objects of his peculiar favour.

LETTER XXIV.

Vesuvius-Herculaneum-Pompeii.

VES

ESUVIUS since we have been in its neighbourhood has only rolled out volumes of smoke, sometimes gracefully mounting into the air, sometimes towering round the Crater, according to the state of the atmosphere, and the direction of the wind. There has been no flame since the eruption of 1794, though the Mountain has been often thought to threaten.

A day or two ago we rambled up its sides as far as the foot of the Crater. They exhibit the most singular con

trast

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trast of barrenness and fertility, according to the course of the torrents of lava, the intervals between which are covered with Chesnut trees and Vineyards, from which are made the luscious Wines called the Lachryma Christi, and Muscadel.

At the top of the ascent, where you are still a mile and a half from the Crater, there was before the Insurrection a Convent of Monks where refreshments could be procured: but it is now deserted, and the weary Visitant must content himself with the enchanting prospect that throws the Bay of Naples with its Cities and its Islands-its hills and its vallies, at once at his feet, bordered with a sparkling semicircle in the open sea terminated every evening,

with the undescribable glories of an Italian sky.

We approached the Crater, a hill of ashes and pumice stones, in the shape of a cone, half a mile in diameter, and five hundred feet high, near enough to hear the great pot boil-the continual bubbling of the liquid lava producing a sound that exactly resembles the boiling of a Cauldron.

But as this conical hill cannot be ascended without excessive fatigue from sinking every step half-leg deep in ashes, hot enough to scorch a pair of boots; and as we had had an account of the present situation of the mouth of the Crater from a French Gentleman that had descended into it the day before, we suffered

suffered Curiosity to press us no further, and amused ourselves with tracing across the subjacent Country the various currents of lava with which fertile vallies have been desolated and flourishing Cities overwhelmed.

Toward midsummer 1794 Vesuvius had ceased to vomit either fire or smoke, a circumstance that generally presages an eruption; and at half past three o'clock on the morning of the 13th. of July, the Inhabitants of the foot of the Mountain were suddenly alarmed with a shock like that of an earthquake. This terrifying stroke was thrice repeated, and the People immediately fled into their gardens where they passed the remainder of the night in anxious expec

tation.