Greatest wonders of the world, as seen and described by famous writers

by Unknown

At Home and Abroad (New York, 1864).

STROMBOLI

(SICILY)

ALEXANDRE DUMAS

As we advanced, Stromboli became more and more distinct every moment, and through the clear evening air we could perceive every detail; this mountain is formed exactly like a hay-mow, its summit being surmounted by a peak; it is from this summit that the smoke escapes, and, at intervals of a quarter of an hour, a flame; during the daytime this flame does not apparently exist, being lost in the light of the sun; but when evening comes, and the Orient begins to darken, this flame becomes visible and you can see it dart forth from the midst of the smoke which it colours, and fall again in jets of lava.

Towards seven o’clock we reached Stromboli; unfortunately the port is in the east, and we came from the west; so that we had to coast along the whole length of the island where the lava descended down a sharp slope into the sea. For a breadth of twenty paces at its summit and a hundred and fifty at its base, the mountain at this point is covered with cinders and all vegetation is burned.

The captain was correct in his predictions: we arrived half an hour after the port had been closed; all we could say to make them open to us was lost eloquence.

However, the entire population of Stromboli had run to the shore. Our Speronare was a frequent visitor to this harbour and our sailors were well known in the island.... It was in Stromboli that Æolus held bound the luctantes ventos tempestatesque sonoras. Without doubt, at the time of the song of Æneas, and when Stromboli was called Strongyle, the island was not known for what it really is, and hid within its depths the boiling masses and periodical ejaculations which make this volcano the most obliging one in the world. In sooth, you know what to expect from Stromboli: it is not like Vesuvius or Etna, which make the traveller wait sometimes three, five or even ten years for a poor little eruption. I have been told that this is doubtless owing to the position they hold in the hierarchy of fire-vomiting mountains, a hierarchy that permits them to be aristocratic at their own pleasure: this is true enough; and we must not take it amiss if Stromboli allows her social position to be assailed an instant, and to have understood that it is only a little toy volcano to which one would not pay the slightest attention if it made itself so ridiculous as to put on airs.

Moreover, it did not keep us waiting. After scarcely five minutes’ expectation, a heavy rumbling was heard, a detonation resembling twenty cannon fired in succession, and a long jet of flame leaped into the air and fell again in a shower of lava; a part of this shower fell again into the crater of the volcano, while the other, rolling down the slope hurried like a brooklet of flame to extinguish itself, hissing, into the sea. Ten minutes later the same phenomenon was repeated, and at every succeeding ten minutes throughout the night.

I admit that this was one of the most curious nights I ever spent in my life; neither Jadin nor I could tear ourselves away from this terrible and magnificent spectacle. There were such detonations that the very atmosphere seemed excited, and you imagined the whole island trembling like a frightened child; it was only Milord that these fire-works put into a state of exaltation impossible to describe; he wanted to jump into the water every moment to devour the burning lava which sometimes fell ten feet from us, like a meteor precipitating itself into the sea.