But there is still a further ascent to make on foot to reach the actual mouth of the crater and look down into the yawning hell that night and day, for ever and ever, is belching forth flame and smoke, and hurling large stones and masses of rock into the air with a report that can only be compared to the discharge of artillery.
As we alight from the funicular, we find ourselves in an awful atmosphere. We are nearly choked with the noxious fumes of the volcano, and our eyes are stung and blinded with the sulphurous smoke that envelops us. The earth trembles beneath our feet, the huge mountain throbs and gasps from beneath, and thick as hail around falls the shower of stones that the volcano, with a thunderous roar, hurls unceasingly into the air.
Still we determine to go on. I have sworn to look into the fiery jaws of Vesuvius, and I will. Slowly we climb up that ‘awful’ summit—a summit seething and boiling and steaming at every pore. Only those who have made the ascent can realize the awful grandeur of the scene which awaits the intrepid excursionist.
I use the word ‘awful’ advisedly. The stoutest heart will quake at the spectacle which he beholds for the first time, and the surroundings are not calculated to diminish the feelings of terror.
During the week I made my ascent a rumour had been published to the effect that an Englishman who made the ascent of Vesuvius without a guide had been lost. It is quite possible to be lost on the summit of Vesuvius. Enveloped in smoke and steam, you may easily, if you are incautious, become asphyxiated and fall into the crater of the raging volcano, never to be heard of again.
The Englishman turns out to have been a German, and he has probably turned up again at his hotel safe and sound, but there was plenty of justification for the anxiety of his friends.
We take a guide. My companion was on the mountain during one eruption and had to fly for his life. While we are ascending he tells me the story, and that does not add to my sense of security.
It was the greatest eruption that had occurred during the present century, and took place on April 24, 1872. At 4 p.m. a new crater opened on the side of the mountain, and the lava from it made a circular sweep round the mountain, threatening to cut off the descent of all the people who were up above.
My companion, alarmed by the shouts of the guides, guessed something had happened, and made all haste to descend, and only got down just in time to find a narrow passage still open, through which he dashed.
By the time he reached the Hermitage the entire side of the mountain was a sheet of burning lava. He learned afterwards that forty people had perished on the volcano. The lava overwhelmed two villages—Massa and San Sebastiano—and at Resina, the village at the foot, nearly a hundred people were destroyed.