A Year in Europe

by Walter W. Moore

But the things that interested us most were not in Naples, but around it—such as Puteoli, where, many centuries ago, on a balmy spring day like this, when the south wind was blowing softly over the sea, the Apostle Paul landed, with Luke and Aristarchus, on his way to Rome; and where the ruins of the Temple of Jupiter Serapis, bearing sea-marks at various levels and having its columns perforated by lithodomites and containing imbedded shells, shows how the building, by gradual subsidence of the land, was first let down into the water, and then by volcanic upheaval lifted again to the higher level.

The Blue Grotto at Capri.

Directly in front of us as we look from our windows, but far out over the expanse of sunlit water, twenty-two miles away, we can see Capri, lying like a turquoise gem on the bosom of the bay. Our party returned from their visit to this enchanting island with quite new conceptions of the color effects that may be produced by the combination of sunlight and sea water. When the steamer stops at Capri, a short distance beyond the town of Capri, the passengers get into small boats and are rowed up to a lofty cliff, in the base of which, at the water level, there is a small hole, four feet high and four feet wide, so small, indeed, that it cannot be entered at all when the tide is up or the water is rough. Even under favorable conditions, passengers have to sit on the bottom of the boat and duck their heads. This is the entrance to the wonderful Blue Grotto. "Once within, you find yourself in an arched cavern about one hundred and sixty feet long, one hundred and twenty wide, and about seventy high. How deep it is no man knows. It goes down to the bottom of the ocean. The waters of this placid subterranean lake are the brightest, loveliest blue that can be imagined. They are as transparent as plate glass, and their coloring would shame the richest sky that ever bent over Italy. No tint could be more ravishing, no lustre more superb. Throw a stone into the water, and the myriad of tiny bubbles that are created flash out a brilliant glare like blue theatrical fires. Dip an oar, and its blade turns to frosted silver, tinted with blue. Let a man jump in, and instantly he is cased in an armor more gorgeous than ever kingly crusader wore." Two boys, in the scantiest possible attire, who were standing on a ledge when we entered, clothed themselves repeatedly in this celestial armor for our delectation and their profit, by diving for the pennies flung into the water by the passengers.

The Ascent of Vesuvius.

When you visit Vesuvius, make an early start and give yourself plenty of time. It took our party four hours and a half, with a good team, to drive from Naples to the foot of the steep cone at the top. The journey takes you through some of the disagreeable parts of the city and gives you a new impression of its extent. When at last you do turn from the squalid streets and begin the ascent of the mountain, your enjoyment begins. The fresh breeze, laden with the fragrance of orange blossoms, tempers the heat, and at every turn of the winding, climbing road you have the most entrancing views of the city and the bay. The mountain itself is partly covered with the luxuriant greenery of orchards and villas, and partly by the gloomy beds of lava thrown out by successive eruptions—"a black ocean, which was tumbled into a thousand fantastic shapes—a wild chaos of ruin, desolation and barrenness—a wilderness of billowy upheavals, of furious whirlpools, of miniature mountains rent asunder—of gnarled and knotted, wrinkled and twisted masses of blackness that mimicked branching roots, great vines, trunks of trees all interlaced and mingled together; and all these weird shapes, all this turbulent panorama, all this stormy, far stretching waste of blackness, with its thrilling suggestiveness of life, of action, of boiling, surging, furious motion, was petrified!—all stricken dead and cold in the instant of its maddest rioting!—fettered, paralyzed and left to glower at heaven in impotent rage for evermore!"

A WINDY DAY ON MOUNT VESUVIUS.

I had had the good fortune on a former visit to see the process of its formation. At that time the lava was actually flowing from a breach in the side of the mountain, a little below the cone which surrounds the great crater, and a party of us walked over a half mile or so among the wild rocks and congealed lava to get a sight of it. The rocks over which we walked were too hot to touch with the naked hand, and scorched the bottoms of our shoes. The fumes of sulphur escaping through the crevices made the air almost suffocating. These conditions became more aggravated the nearer we came to the object of our search, so that one or two of the party became quite unnerved, gave up the expedition, and returned. We felt like we were walking in a furnace. Then the guide made a turn round some great boulders, and there it was—a slowly moving stream of liquid fire, issuing from under a great rock, and flowing down the side of the mountain. Every one threw his hands before his face to protect it from the blistering heat. The guide, standing behind a big rock, reached over with a long pole into this fearful red river and lifted out a glob of the molten lava on the end of it, as you would dip up a bit of hot molasses candy on the end of a fork, then, withdrawing a little way, he disengaged the lava from the end of the pole with a smaller stick, and, asking me for a penny, he laid the coin on the lump of lava and pressed it well down into the mass which rose round the edges of the coin, holding it firmly in its place—and thus made for me a paper weight, which is my best souvenir of Vesuvius.

The ascent of the cone to the crater is next thing to trying to climb a church steeple. Thanks to the enterprise of Thomas Cook & Sons, there is an inclined railway which takes you from the foot of the cone up the steep breast of the mountain nearly to the top—a dizzy ride, one that makes you shut your eyes and grip the arms of your seat. Then comes the worst of it—the final climb through warm cinders ankle deep, which furnish very bad footing and come over your shoe tops at every step. There are rude sedan chairs on poles, and chair-bearers who will gladly carry you up for an additional fee—and there are often ludicrous scenes when timid ladies essay this mode of ascent. The distance is very short, so the ladies of our party determined to climb it themselves, but, when about half way up, they were glad enough to take hold of the looped ends of ropes while men at the other end pulled, and so at last they stood on the very top of the great volcano. Not for long, however, for, after they had walked round the edge of the great crater and gotten a view of the new crater, formed within, and looking like the heaped hole of a gigantic "doodle bug," with its slopes made of cinders instead of sand, and sprinkled with orange-colored sulphur, the wind veered suddenly and swept the stifling sulphur fumes right into their faces. They ran, coughing, back over the cinders and down again to the upper station of the railway, fully convinced that Vesuvius, though not perhaps so impressive, was decidedly more pleasant at a distance than at such close range.