A SAFE HORSE.
My horse had been warranted to me as a safe beast, and after we had fairly started, I found that he was pretty nearly as safe as a dead horse. When he began to climb the mountain, he really seemed to be more dead than alive, and no persuasion, whether with my stick or heels, could induce him to break into a run. When we reached the foot of the cone, half a dozen boys offered to hold him; but I concluded he had better hold the boys—one was quite sufficient to keep him quiet while we made the upward journey.
The real work of climbing Vesuvius began at the foot of the cone. The beasts that had brought us would not go beyond this point, and so we dismounted. After refreshing ourselves with a bottle of villanous wine, that tasted of sulphur, sewer-water, and other delightful things, we removed our coats and started upward. There was a fresh lot of loafers, who wanted to assist us. They had chairs strung upon two poles, by which four men could carry a person to the summit. The chairs were very good things in their way, but I preferred to walk, and so did my companions. The path sloped at an angle of forty-five degrees, and was made up of ashes and stones. The natives had arranged the stones in such a way, that a person could step from one to another without great difficulty, only that it happened that the stones were so far apart that they occasionally needed a pretty wide step.
SEDAN CHAIRS.
Finding I would not be carried in a chair, the loafers importuned me to be dragged up with a strap or rope. A stout fellow went in front of me, and continually pressed me to seize a strap which he invitingly pushed before my nose. I repeatedly told him that I did not want it; but he stuck to me half way up, and then concluded I was a bad bargain. As I would not accept his offer of assistance, he proposed that I should give him half a franc to leave me. This I refused to do, and told him he might go to the summit if he liked, and enjoy the scenery; but he wanted no summit, unless he could earn something. He started back down the mountain, and I had the pleasure of seeing him miss his footing, and roll to the bottom. I learned afterwards that, most unfortunately, he did not break his neck, and was not seriously injured.
I have had a good deal of climbing in my life, but that was the worst thirteen hundred feet I ever made at one time and in one piece. I had to stop several times on the way up, in order to take breath, and something with it to make the breath go down. One of my friends suggested giving it up when near the summit; he said there had been a great mistake in the statements of the guides and guide-books. I asked him how it was, and he said, “We were informed that donkeys go only to the foot of the cone, and not to the top; but it is my impression that there are now four of the greatest donkeys in the known world trying to reach the summit.” We forgave him for his joke, and, after a mouthful of bad wine, he felt better, and proceeded.
For a good deal of the distance where we climbed it seemed as if we slipped back one step for every two or three that we took forward, and in some places we slipped back two steps where we went forward one. An exhausted Englishman was just ahead of us, and his misery gave us great comfort. One of the Italians had a leather strap fastened about his own neck, and persuaded the Englishman to take hold of it. Another Italian went before the first, and held on to a strap around the first man’s waist. Another Italian went behind the Englishman, and pushed him ahead, so that he managed to get along very fairly.
AN ENGLISHMAN’S MISHAP.
At a critical moment the rear Italian slipped; the Englishman slipped next, and pulled down the two fellows in front. The result was, that the whole four were doubled up in a heap, rolled over in the ashes, and lost about fifty feet of distance before they could recover themselves. For about a minute there was a confused mass of legs, arms, and curses, some Italian and some English, which drew forth shouts of laughter from the spectators. The enraged Britisher did not like the journey, and gave up the attempt as a bad job. We were sorry for this, as we expected him to be suffocated in the sulphur fumes at the top, and afford us an opportunity to observe his agony.
When we reached the summit we sat down to rest, and take a little wine. Then the guide led us around to the crater, where the fumes of sulphur and clouds of steam were rising out of the volcano, and around a great, yawning gulf, that was a complete mass of fire. We had to hold our kerchiefs over our noses to save us from suffocation, and even with this it was almost impossible to breathe. The crater, at that time, was comparatively small,—at least, so they told me,—but it seemed to me a very fair crater for all practical purposes. The flames filled it from side to side. Their colors were white, purple, yellow, and crimson, and they threw up clouds of smoke and steam. It seemed as if the summit of the mountain was hollow, and might easily be broken in. If a man should fall into the crater, his chance of escape would be as good as if he was dropped into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, with a twenty ton anchor fastened to his neck.