THE ASCENT OF VESUVIUS.
November 1st.
Our excursion to Vesuvius was delayed for some days to await the
arrival of the Franklin, which was to bring us the lieutenant who was
our travelling companion in Germany last summer, and who wished to
make the ascent in our company. At length, on Thursday, the firing of
heavy guns told us that the great ship was coming into the harbor, and
we were soon on board, where we received a most hearty welcome, not
only from our kinsman, but from all the officers. The Franklin is the
Flag-ship of our European squadron, and bears the flag of Admiral John
L. Worden, the gallant officer whose courage and skill in fighting the
Monitor against the Merrimack in Hampton Roads in 1862, saved the
country in an hour of imminent peril. Well do we remember the terror
in New York caused by the tidings of the sinking of the Congress and
the Cumberland by that first ironclad--a new sea monster whose powers
of destruction were unknown, and which we expected to see within a
week sailing up our harbor, and demanding the surrender of the city.
From this and other dangers, which we shudder to contemplate, we were
saved by the little Monitor on that eventful day. As Admiral Worden
commands only the _fleet_, the _ship_ is commanded by an officer who
bears the same honored name as the ship itself--Captain Franklin. We
were very proud to see such men, surrounded by a fine set of officers,
representing our country here. As we made frequent visits to the ship,
we came to feel quite at home there. Not the least pleasant part of
these visits was to meet several American ladies--the wife and
daughters of Admiral Worden, and the wife of Captain Franklin. Men who
have rendered distinguished services to their country are certainly
entitled to a little domestic comfort on their long voyages; while the
presence of such ladies is a benefit to all on board. When men are
alone, whether in camp or on a ship, they are apt to become a little
rough, and the mere presence of a noble woman has a refining influence
over them. I can see it here in these young officers, who all seem to
have a chivalrous feeling towards these ladies, who remind them of
their own mothers and sisters at home. A more happy family I have not
met on land or sea.
To their company we are indebted for much of the pleasure of our
excursion to Vesuvius. On Saturday a large party was made up from the
ship, which included the family of Admiral Worden, Captain and Mrs.
Franklin, and half a dozen lieutenants. Our excellent consul at
Naples, Mr. Duncan, and his sister, were also with us. We filled four
carriages, and away we went through the streets of Naples at a furious
rate; sweeping around the bay (along which, as we looked through
arched passages to the right, we could see villas and gardens
stretching down to the waters), till we reached Resina, which stands
on the site of buried Herculaneum. Here we turned to the left, and
began the ascent. And now we found it well that our drivers had
harnessed three stout horses abreast to each carriage, as we had a
hard climb upward along the blackened sides of the mountain.
We soon perceived the wide-spread ruin wrought by successive eruptions
of the volcano. Over all this mountain side had rolled a deluge of
fire, and on every hand were strewn the wrecks of the mighty
desolation. It seemed as if a destroying angel had passed over the
earth, blasting wherever his shadow fell. On either side stretched
miles and miles of lava, which had flowed here and there slowly and
sluggishly like molten iron, turning when interrupted in its course,
and twisted into a thousand shapes.
But if this was a terrible sight, there was something to relieve the
eye, as we looked away in the distance to where the smile of God still
rests on an unsmitten world. As we mounted higher, we commanded a
wider view, and surely never was there a more glorious panorama than
that which was unrolled at our feet on that October morning. There was
the bay of Naples, flashing in the sunlight, with the beautiful
islands of Ischia and Capri lying, like guardian fortresses, off its
mouth, and ships coming and going to all parts of the Mediterranean.
What an image was presented in that one view of the contrasts in our
human life between sunshine and shadow--blooming fields on one hand,
and a blackened waste on the other; above, a region swept by fire, and
below, gardens and vineyards, and cities and villages, smiling in
peace and security.
We had left Naples at nine o'clock, but it was noon before we reached
the Observatory--a station which the Italian Government has
established on the side of the mountain for the purpose of making
meteorological observations. This is the limit to which carriages can
ascend, and here we rested for an hour. Our watchful lieutenants had
thoughtfully provided a substantial lunch, which the steward spread in
a little garden overlooking the bay, and there assembled as merry a
group of Americans as ever gathered on the sides of Vesuvius.
From the Observatory, those who would spare any unnecessary fatigue
may take mules a mile farther to the foot of the cone, but our party
preferred the excitement of the walk after our long ride. In ascending
the cone, no four-footed beast is of any service; one must depend on
his own strong limbs, unless he chooses to accept the aid of some of
the fierce looking attendants who offer their services as porters. A
lady may take a chair, and for forty francs be carried quite to the
top on the shoulders of four stout fellows. But the more common way
is to take two assistants, one to go forward who drags you up by a
strap attached around his waist, to which you hold fast for dear life,
while another _pushes_ behind. Our young lady had _three_ escorts. She
drove a handsome team of two ahead, while a third lubberly fellow was
trying to make himself useful, or, at least, to earn his money, by
putting his hands on her shoulders, and thus urging her forward. I
believe I was the only person of the party, except the Consul and one
lieutenant, who went up without assistance. I took a man at first,
rather to get rid of his importunity, but he gave out sooner than I
did, stopping after a few rods to demand more money, whereupon I threw
him off in disgust, and made the ascent alone. But I would not
recommend others to follow my example, as the fatigue is really very
great, especially to one unused to mountain climbing. Not only is the
cone very steep, but it is covered with ashes; so that one has no firm
hold for his feet, but sinks deep at every step. Thus he makes slow
progress, and is soon out of breath. He can only keep on by going
_very slowly_. I had to stop every few minutes, and throw myself down
in the ashes, to rest. But with these little delays, I kept steadily
mounting higher and higher.
As we neared the top, the presence of the volcano became manifest, not
merely from the cloud which always hangs about it, but by smoke
issuing from many places at the side. It seemed as if the mountain
were a vast smouldering heap out of which the internal heat forced its
way through every aperture. Here and there a long line of smoke seemed
to indicate a subterranean fissure or vein, through which the pent-up
fires forced their way. As we crossed these lines of smoke the
sulphurous fumes were stifling, especially when the wind blew them in
our faces.
But at last all difficulties were conquered, and we stood on the very
top, and looked over the awful verge into the crater.
Those who have never seen a volcano are apt to picture it as a tall
peak, a slender cone, like a sugar loaf, with a round aperture at the
top, like the chimney of a blast furnace, out of which issues fire and
smoke. Something of this indeed there is, but the actual scene is
vastly greater and grander. For, instead of a small round opening,
like the throat of a chimney, large enough for one flaming column, the
crater is nearly half a mile across, and many hundreds of feet deep;
and one looks down into a yawning gulf, a vast chasm in the mountain,
whose rocky sides are yellow with sulphur, and out of which the smoke
issues from different places. At times it is impossible to see
anything, as dense volumes of smoke roll upward, which the wind drives
toward us, so that we are ourselves lost in the cloud. Then they drift
away, and for an instant we can see far down into the bowels of the
earth.
Standing on the bald head of Vesuvius, one cannot help some grave
reflections, looking at what is before him only from the point of view
of a man of science. The eruption of a volcano is one of the most
awful scenes in nature, and makes one shudder to think of the elements
of destruction that are imprisoned in the rocky globe. What desolation
has been wrought by Vesuvius alone--how it has thrown up mountains,
laid waste fields, and buried cities! What a spectacle has it often
presented to the terrified inhabitants of Naples, as it has shot up a
column not only of smoke, but of fire! The flames have often risen to
the height of a mile above the summit of the mountain, their red blaze
lighting up the darkness of the night, and casting a glare over the
waters of the bay, while the earth was moaning and trembling, as if in
pain and fear.
And the forces that have wrought such destruction are active still.
For two thousand years this volcano has been smoking, and yet it is
not exhausted. Its fury is still unspent. Far down in the heart of the
earth still glow the eternal fires. This may give some idea of the
terrific forces that are at work in the interior of the hollow globe,
while it suggests at least the possibility of a final catastrophe,
which shall prove the destruction of the planet itself.
But if the spectacle be thus suggestive and threatening to the man of
science, it speaks still more distinctly to one who has been
accustomed to think that a time is coming when "the earth, being on
fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent
heat," and who beholds in these ascending flames the prophetic symbol
of the Dies Irae--the Day of Doom--that shall at last end the long
tragedy of man's existence on the earth.
As I stood on the edge of the crater and looked down into the awful
depths below, it seemed as if I beheld a scene such as might have
inspired the description of Dante in his Inferno, or of John in the
Apocalypse; as if that dread abyss were no unfit symbol of the "lower
deep" into which sink lost human souls. That "great gulf" was as the
Valley of Hell; its rocky sides, yellow with sulphurous flames--how
glistening and slippery they looked!--told of a "lake of fire and
brimstone" seething and boiling below; those yawning caverns which
were disclosed as the smoke drifted away, were the abodes of despair,
and the winds that moaned and shrieked around were the wailings of the
lost; while the pillar of cloud which is always rising from beneath,
which "ceases not day nor night," was as "the smoke of torment,"
forever ascending.
He must be a dull preacher who could not find a lesson in that awful
scene; or see reflected in it the dangers to which he himself is
exposed. Fire is the element of destruction, even more than water. The
"cruel, crawling foam" of the sea, that comes creeping towards us to
seize and to destroy, is not so treacherous as the flames, darting out
like serpents' tongues, that come creeping upward from the abyss,
licking the very stones at our feet, and that seem eager to lick up
our blood.
The point where we stood projected over the crater. The great eruption
three years since had torn away half the cone of the mountain, and now
there hung above it a ledge, which seemed ready at any moment to break
and fall into the gulf below. As I stood on that "perilous edge," the
crumbling verge of the volcano, I seemed to be in the position of a
human being exposed to dangers vast and unseen, to powers which blind
and smother and destroy. As if Nature would fix this lesson, by an
image never to be forgotten, the sun that was declining in the west,
suddenly burst out of the cloud, and cast my own shadow on the column
of smoke that was rising from below. That shadowy form, standing in
the air, now vanishing, and then reappearing with every flash of
sunlight, seemed no inapt image of human life, a thing of shadow,
floating in a cloud, and hovering over an abyss!
Thus musing, I lingered on the summit to the last, for such was the
fascination of the scene that I could not tear myself away, and it was
not till all were gone, and I found myself quite alone, that I turned
and followed them down the mountain side. The descent is as rapid as
the ascent is slow. A few minutes do the work of hours, as one plunges
down the ashy cone, and soon our whole party were reassembled at its
base. It was five o'clock when we took our carriages at the
Observatory; and quite dark before we got down the mountain, so that
men with lighted torches (long sticks of pine, like those with which
travellers make their way through the darkness of American forests),
had to go before us to show the road, and with such flaring flambeaux,
and much shouting of men and boys, of guides and drivers, we came
rolling down the sides of Vesuvius, and a little after seven o'clock
were again rattling through the streets of Naples.
Yesterday was our last day in this city, as we leave this afternoon
for Athens and Constantinople, and as it was the Sabbath, we went on
board the Franklin for a religious service. Such a service is always
very grateful to an American far from home. The deck of an American
ship is like a part of his country, a floating island, anchored for
the moment to a foreign shore: and as he stands there, and sees around
him the faces of countrymen, and hears, instead of the language of
strangers, his dear old mother tongue, and looks up and sees floating
above him the flag he loves so well--that has been through so many
battles and storms--he cannot keep down a trembling in his heart, or
the tears from his eyes.
And how delightful it is, on such a spot, and with such a company, to
join in religious worship. The Franklin has an excellent chaplain--one
who commands the respect of all on board by his consistent life,
though without any cant or affectation, while his uniform kindness and
sympathy win their hearts. The service was held on the gun-deck, where
officers and men were assembled, sitting as they could, between the
cannon. The band played one or two sacred airs, and the chaplain read
the service with his deep, rich voice, after which it was my privilege
to preach to this novel congregation of my countrymen. Altogether the
occasion was one of very peculiar interest to me, and I hope it was
equally so to others.
And so we took leave of the Franklin, with most grateful memories of
the kindness of all, from the Admiral down. It is pleasant to see such
a body of officers on board of one of our national ships. None can
realize, except those who travel abroad, how much of the good name of
our country is entrusted to the keeping of such men. They go
everywhere, they appear in every port of Europe and indeed of the
world; they are instantly recognized by their uniform, and are
regarded, much more than ordinary travellers, as the representatives
of our country. How pleasant it is to find them uniformly
_gentlemen_--courteous and dignified, preserving their self-respect,
while showing proper respect to others. I am proud to see such a
generation of young officers coming on the stage, and trust it may
always be said of them, that (taking example from the gallant captains
and admirals who are now the pride of our American Navy,) they are as
modest as they are brave. Such be the men to carry the starry flag
around the globe!