“By turns a pitchy cloud she rolls on high,
By turns hot embers from her entrails fly,
And flakes of mounting flames lick the sky;
Oft from her bowels massy rocks are thrown,
And shiver’d from their force come piecemeal down.
Oft liquid fires of burning sulphur glow,
Nurs’d by the fiery spring that burns below.”—Dryden.
My imagination, I admit, was actively alive to the possible accidents which might have occurred; I followed, however, with all the confidence which my conviction of being under the care of a cautious leader, did not fail to inspire. My guide appeared highly gratified with the incident, asserting that it was the first time one deprived of sight had ever ventured there; and adding, that he was sure it would much surprise the king, when the circumstance became known to him, in the report which is daily made of the persons who visit the mountain. The ground was too hot under our feet, and the sulphurous vapour too strong to allow of our remaining long in this situation; and when he thought he had given us a sufficient idea of the nature of this part of the mountain, we retired to a more solid and a cooler footing; previous to which, however, he directed my walking-cane towards the flames, which shrivelled the ferrule, and charred the lower part;—this I still retain as a memorial.
From hence we were conducted to the edge of a small crater, now extinguished, from whence about two months before, the Frenchman, rivalling the immortality of Empedocles—