N the year 1840, I was enabled to set out upon a tour which I had long contemplated, but had never before possessed an opportunity of performing. It was a journey from England to the southern part of Italy, for the purpose of visiting some of the most remarkable objects, natural and artificial, in that interesting country. In this pleasant excursion, which was to extend over three months, I was accompanied by my wife. Mrs P- being in some measure an invalid, I hoped the journey would be beneficial to her health; but an equally sufficient reason for her accompanying me, was the pleasure we should derive from each other's society in a fardistant land. 'Take me with you, dear Charles,' said she to me one evening before setting out. I know it will be very fatiguing, and I am told Italy is not a country with accommodation such as English ladies are accustomed to; but then, by going, I shall not be exposed to torturing anxieties about you at home. If you are ill, I shall know the worst; if you are well, I shall be all the happier in your

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presence.' Who could turn a deaf ear to an entreaty so affectionate as this? 'By all means, let us go together,' said I; 'but remember -for ladies require to be reminded of such matters-no more luggage than a small portmanteau each; that is all that can be allowed.'

These preliminaries being agreed upon, our few things were soon packed up. I procured a passport; and with a due provision of circular notes to pay expenses,* we set out on our travels. The day of our departure from London was the 10th of April, and three days later we were in Paris. From this city we proceeded to Lyon by way of Chalons, a town on the Saone, our conveyance being one of the diligences of the country. From Lyon, a fine central city in France, noted for its silk manufactures, we descended the Rhone in a steam-boat to Marseille. This was done very rapidly, for the Rhone is an impetuous river, and the current powerfully assists the steam-vessels in their progress.

Marseille is a large seaport on the shore of the Mediterranean, and steam-vessels depart from it to every port in Italy and various other places. We stayed no longer in Marseille than to select one of the best vessels plying to Naples, and finally settled on one which was well recommended, called the Pharamond. This we found to be a good French-built boat, with two engines of 60 horse-power each, and handsomely fitted up for passengers.

It was on a fine clear morning, the 23d of April, that we issued from the capacious basin forming the port of Marseille, and stood away in an easterly direction towards the coast of Italy. It was the first time we had been on the waters of the Mediterranean, and there they lay before us, more beautiful and tranquil than we could have expected for the season. I thought of the many historical events in ancient and modern times which had occurred on the shores of this inland ocean, and with excited feelings contemplated its broad expanse, reflecting like a mirror the bright noonday sun.

The vessel in its course stops at various places, the first being Genoa, which we reached in twenty-five hours. Here we remained for nearly a day, and then passed on to Leghorn, where there was another stoppage of equal length. It is not my purpose to say anything of these places, neither of Civita Vecchia, where the vessel made another short delay, but at once mention, that at the end of about sixty-five hours from Marseille we were safely landed at Naples. The approach to this city is across a most capacious and beautiful bay, commanding a view of some noble scenery, in which the huge pile of Vesuvius is eminently conspicuous. In the foreground along the shore we observe for several miles an almost

*Circular notes are draughts on at least a hundred different banks throughout the continent, any one of which will pay them on presentation. They are given by certain bankers in London in exchange for money. Being payable only to the bearer named, whose signature is verified by a separate letter which he carries with him, and, if necessary, by his passport, they are convenient and safe notes for continental travelling.

continuous range of houses, villages, and quays, broken by different projections, and diversified by rows and clusters of trees already in full leaf.

Behind this interesting foreground are seen piles of building, long and handsome palaces, terrace-like gardens, towers, and, above all, the massive fortress of San Elmo on a rocky eminence. Arriving within the confines of this attractive scene, we were amused with the miscellaneous crowds of loiterers and workers on the public thoroughfares. Although early in spring, the weather was balmy and pleasant, and permitted all kinds of labour to be performed out of doors. The lively bustle was excessive. At nearly every step we are interrupted by some one carrying on his trade-a carpenter with his bench, a shoemaker hammering his leather, a cook preparing macaroni, or a knife-grinder with his wheel. Besides these impediments, there are numerous attractions to detain the idler-Punch holding forth to a gaping crowd of lazzaroni, as the poor and loitering popuÎace are named; players on the guitar; and improvisatori, or men who will extemporise on any subject which you may please to name, inventing the incidents as they proceed.

The difficulty of getting along through this entangled mass is increased by the general Ischia I narrowness of the streets, few of which are more than fifteen or twenty feet wide, and all destitute of foot-pavement. The houses are for the most part very high; some are

of vast size, more like huge barracks than houses, and contain several hundred distinct dwellings, with a great number of cells answering as shops in the ground story. We were struck with the number of priests who were passing to and fro; and the oddity of the various means of conveyance added to the novelty of the scene -horses, asses, and mules carrying sacks of corn and other articles on their backs, as was the practice in England hundreds of years ago.

During our stay in Naples we took up our residence at the hotel 'Gran Bretagna,' from whose windows we commanded on one side a lovely prospect of the Bay of Naples, dotted with hundreds of little

boats, with the rocky islet of Capri in the distance; and on the other, towards the south, the double cone of Vesuvius, from whose summit curled a graceful wreath of smoke, the token of fires smouldering beneath, which might in a moment burst forth. To visit this celebrated volcanic mountain and the scene of its operations was the principal object of my journey, and I now propose to take the reader along with me on the different excursions I made to it and its neighbourhood, beginning, however, with a short

HISTORY OF VESUVIUS.

Vesuvius is one of the largest and most active volcanoes in the world. It has been burning, and smoking, and committing devastations on the surrounding country for at least two thousand years, and probably for many centuries before. Situated within a few miles of the sea, its ravages have extended across the intermediate space, laying waste vineyards and fields, and destroying the villages and cities which lie in the course of its eruptions.

As little is known respecting the origin of Vesuvius as of the cause of its combustion, although the chemical action of different metals and gases, influenced by occasional intrusions of the water of the sea, is probably the source of the burning and eruptions.* The chief

*The cause of volcanoes, earthquakes, and other subterranean movements has been the subject of several theories, but is yet by no means very satisfactorily determined. The most prevalent opinion is that which connects them with one great source of central heatthe residue of that incandescent state in which our globe originally appeared. By this hypothesis, it is assumed that the crust of the earth is of various thickness, that it contains vast caverns, and is extensively fissured-primarily by unequal contraction from cooling, and subsequently by subterranean agitations. Through these fissures water finds its way to the heated mass within; this generates steam and other gases, and these exploding, and struggling to expand, produce earthquakes and agitations, which are rendered more alarming by the cavernous and broken structure of the crust, and the yielding material upon which it rests. Occasionally, these vapours make their way through fissures and other apertures as gaseous exhalations, or as hot springs and jets of steam and water, like the geysers of Iceland. On the other hand, when the expansive forces within become so powerful as to break through the earth's crust, discharges of lava, red-hot stones, ashes, dust, steam, and other vapours follow; and repeated discharges of solid material gradually form volcanic cones and mountain-ranges. It does not follow, however, that volcanic discharges must always take place at the point where the greatest internal pressure is exerted, for volumes of expansive vapour press equally upon the crust and upon the fluid mass within, so that the latter will be propelled towards whatever craters or fissures do already exist. This theory of central heat is further supported by the occurrence of igneous phenomena in all regions of the globe, and by the fact that most volcanic centres are in intimate connection with each other-a commotion in one district being usually accompanied by similar disturbances in another. The only other hypothesis which has met with countenance from geologists, is that which supposes the internal heat to be the result of chemical action among the materials composing the earth's crust. Some of the metallic bases of the alkalies and earths, as potassium, the moment they touch water, explode, burn, melt, and become converted into red-hot matter not unlike certain lavas. This fact has given rise to the supposition that such bases may exist within the globe, where, water finding its way to them, they explode and burn, fusing the rocks among which they occur, creating various gases, and producing caverns, fissures, eruptions, and other phenomena attendant upon earthquakes and volcanoes. As yet, our knowledge of the earth's crust at great depths is exceedingly limited; we know little of the chemical and magnetic operations which may be going forward among its strata, and we are equally ignorant of the transpositions which may take place among its metallic and earthy materials; but judging from what we do

indication of an approaching eruption is an increase of smoke from the summit, sometimes rising in a branching form to a vast height. Tremendous explosions, like successive rounds of artillery, accompany the increase of smoke, and are followed by copious jets of redcoloured flames and showers of stones. At length the lava, a redhot fluid mass, forces its way out, either by boiling over the summit of the crater, or bursting through the sides of the mountain, and covers the neighbouring plains. This melted matter, on becoming consolidated, forms a stony mass, many square miles in extent, and several yards in thickness. Nor is this awful ebullition limited to the duration of a day or a week; it has been known to continue, with only partial intermissions, for several months. After the stream of lava ceases to flow, intensely black clouds, consisting of darkcoloured dust or ashes, are emitted from the crater, and occasionally involve the surrounding country at noonday in darkness deep as midnight. The first symptom of the cessation of volcanic action consists in the change of these clouds from black to white, though, while presenting this new appearance, they still continue to shower down very fine powder, which, when consolidated, forms the wellknown light and porous substance called pumice-stone.

The earliest eruption of Vesuvius on record, and one of the most fatal, took place in the year 79 of the Christian era, being the first year of the reign of the Emperor Titus. All the southern part of Italy was alarmed by its violence; and Campania, as the adjoining district is called, was devastated to a great distance. On this occasion the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii were overwhelmed and lost, and the greater part of their inhabitants killed. Pompeii, which stood on the sea-shore about five miles from Vesuvius, had suffered severely from an earthquake sixteen years before the eruption of 79, but had been rebuilt and embellished with several handsome edifices, especially with a magnificent theatre, in which the people were assembled, and intent on the spectacle, when this tremendous visitation burst upon them, burying the whole city in showers of materials projected from the mouth of the volcano. So extensive and thick was the cloud of smoke and ashes which filled the atmosphere, that it was visible in Africa and Syria, and at Rome turned the light of day into the darkness of night, to the consternation of the inhabitants.

As a favourite place of occasional residence to families of distinction from Rome, Pompeii at the time contained, or had in its neighbourhood, several Romans whose names are familiar to the readers of history; among others, Cesius Bassus, a poet, and Agrippa,

know, this theory, however ingenious, seems by no means adequate to the results produced. It is true that there occurs nothing among the products of volcanoes at variance with its assumptions: but the magnitude, the universality, and the perpetuity of volcanic action, point to a more stable and uniform source-that source being the internal heat or residue of that igneous condition in which our planet originally appeared.