Seemed only not to move and grow,
Because the crystal silence of the air
Weighed on their life....”
Tranquilly and slowly descends night upon the untenanted city, as one by one the stars begin to peep [pg 65]forth like chrysolites in the heavens, which have changed from azure to a deep indigo during the sunset hour. Amid chilly dews, to the sound of the evening bell from the distant church of Santa Maria di Pompeii, we hasten in the growing darkness from the Street of the Tombs towards our modest inn outside the Marine Gate, anticipating with delight a ramble in the city in the freshness of the coming morning.
CHAPTER IV
VESUVIUS: THE STORY OF THE MOUNTAIN
The first appearance of Vesuvius, whether viewed from the deck of a steamer entering the Bay of Naples or espied from the window of a railway carriage on the main line running southward from Rome, makes an impression that will linger for ever in the memory. It is open to argument which is the more striking of the two experiences: the Mountain rising proudly from the deep blue waters into the paler shade of the upper air, or its graceful broken contour seen from the landward side to the north across the green fertile plains of the Campagna Felice. From a long acquaintance with both ways of approaching Naples, we are inclined to prefer the latter view. Travelling in an express train from Rome we find ourselves whirled suddenly, by magic as it were, into the atmosphere of the South, when with the sight of the domes and towers of Capua, the ancient capital of Campania the Prosperous, we first note the presence of orange trees and hedges of aloe, of white lupin crops and clumps of prickly pear, and we feel we are nearing Naples with “its burning mountain and its tideless sea,” so that we eagerly strain our eyes in a southerly direction to catch our first glimpse of Vesuvius, with whose shape and [pg 67]history we have been so familiar since our childhood’s days. At length we perceive its double summit, with smoke tranquilly issuing from the cone and obscuring the clarity of the air, and as we hurry forward towards our destination, through the plains studded with elm-trees festooned with vines, we have the satisfaction of observing its form grow larger and more distinct in outline.
On our arrival at Naples, in course of time we grow more intimately acquainted with the peculiar attractions of “the Mountain,” as the Neapolitans always designate their treacherous but fascinating neighbour, of whose near existence they have every reason to be proud, for certainly Vesuvius, though barely as lofty as Ben Nevis, is to us westerns the most famous mountain upon earth. Regarding Vesuvius both from the land and the sea, we note that it rises in solitary majesty from an extended base some thirty miles in circumference, and that it sweeps upwards in graceful curving lines until at a distance of about 3000 feet from sea level its summit is cleft into two peaks; that to the north being a rocky ridge which catches our eye as we gaze eastward from the heights of Sant’ Elmo or the Corso at Naples, the other point being the actual cone of the volcano itself. The upper part of the Mountain has in fact two aspects; in other words, Vesuvius is double, being composed of the ridge of Monte Somma to the north, 3760 feet in height, which is pre-historic; and the ever-shifting modern dome of Vesuvius to the south, which is about 4000 feet high. We say “about” purposely, for Vesuvius proper sometimes over-tops, sometimes equals, and sometimes even crouches under its immovable sister-[pg 68]peak, according to the effect produced by volcanic action. Monte Somma, which is one of the everlasting hills, is the parent, and Vesuvius is the child, born but yesterday from a geological point of view, for it is not so old as the Christian era;—“it is a variable heap thrown up from time to time, and again, not seldom, by a greater effort of the same force, tossed away into the air, and scattered in clouds of dust over far-away countries. Thus it has happened often, in the course of these variations of energy, that Vesuvius has risen to a conical height exceeding that of Somma by 500 or 600 feet, and again, the top has been truncated to a level as low as Somma, or even as much below that mountain as we now behold it above.”[3]