Cicero had a villa on this coast—the “Puteolaneum,” beloved only less than Tusculaneum. It was built upon rising ground, now occupied by a vineyard and orchard, but commanding a beautiful view of sea and shore. Here, Hadrian was buried after his decease at Baiæ, A.D. 138, and rested until the construction of his Roman mausoleum.
Passing the amphitheatre of Pozzuoli, crumbled down to the seats, in the arena of which Nero fought in person, and Diocletian fed wild beasts with Christian martyrs by the hundred; by the chapel that commemorates the death of Januarius, the patron saint of Naples, we were in a steep road full of rough stones—a country lane where horses could hardly hold their footing. Here Ernesto, the useful, who was, at once, coachman and guide, informed us regretfully, that we must walk to the gate of Solfatara. Moreover, with augmented regret—that, although he had, up to this point, been able to protect us from the sallies of other ciceroni, at, at least, five places where Baedeker parenthesizes—(“Guide—1 franc for each pers.”)—he dared not push righteous audacity too far. The tempers of the Solfatara men were uncertain and hot, like their volcano—(nearly extinct).
“I veel stay ’ere veez de ’orses!” subjoined Ernesto, who means to go to America in eight or ten years’ time, to seek a coachman’s place, and practises English diligently to that end. “You veel meet at de gate von man, verra ceevil, who veel zhow you all!”
The civil man awaited us at the top of the short, sharp climb; undid the gate of the enclosure, and called our attention to the stucco manufactory on the inside of the high fence. In his esteem, it outranked the subterranean works whose bellowing and puffing filled our ears. The earth used for this stucco is a pink pumice or clay, pleasing to the eye and very plastic. The plain is composed entirely of it. Men were digging and donkey-carts transporting it to a long shed by the gate, where a huge wheel ground it into paste. Tumuli of the same, natural and artificial, were scattered over the area, which is an oblong basin among chalky hills. At brief intervals, smoke ascended slowly from cracks in the arid earth which was hot to the touch. A man stood near the volcano (nearly extinct) ready to hurl a big stone upon the ground and awaken hollow echoes that rumbled away until lost in the sea on one hand, among the volcanic hills on the other.
If Solfatara were in her usual mood that day, her reputed half-death is an alarmingly energetic condition. Bunyan saw the place in his dreams twice:
“About the midst of the valley, I perceived the mouth of hell to be. Ever and anon the flame and smoke would come out in abundance, with sparks and hideous noises. The flames would be reaching towards him; also, he heard doleful noises and rushings to and fro.”
Again: “There was a door in the side of a hill. Within, it was very dark and smoky. They also thought that they heard there a rumbling noise as of fire, and a cry as of some tormented, and that they smelt the scent of brimstone. The shepherds told them—‘This is a by-way to hell.’”
So said our very civil man.
“What makes the noise down there?” I asked, loudly, to be heard above the roaring and groaning.
“The fire, Madame!”