The American patriot., 1855-04-21

We came round to the western side we were re-
lieved, and could look off on the magnificent
prospect which the summit Of the Vcsuvius
commands.
1t was an enhancing sight There is no
like it on earth
If this has been said of score of other
scenes, let them all be unsaid, that the view
from the Vesuvius may bear the palm.
We can now look far off into the country,
where cities have been, and white villages now
are, and smiling vineyards, down into whose
bosoms these black streams extend from the
sides of the mountain. And here is beautiful
Naples, girdling the sea with its suburban
villages; and there lie the islands of Capri
and Ischia, and this "great and wide sea-"
But we must not be looking off. Weplunge
our walking-sticks into the ground, and out
rushes the smoke and sulphurous gas. We
walk on and find new openings, and hot steam
issues, before which we could not hold our
hands. We step across wide fissures from
which the scalding vapor was ascending, and
we could distinctly hear the roar of the boil
ing caldron below. At last we completed the
circuit of the crater's rim, and sat down again
to rest and think. What wonderful past has
been around this burning mountain! Before
the Phoenicians came hither these flames had
been burning, and the Syriac language gave
the volcano its name. Jupiter Tonans, the
Thunderer, once had temple on the summit
Joni Vesurio sacrum, D. q. Pliny's graphic
story of that awful eruption, which destroyed
the cities of the plains, we read while in full
view of all the localities which he describes.
1t gave terrible reality to the scene. Other
cities are now lying nearer to this crater than
Pompeii, and are thoughtlessly treasuring up
wrath against a similar day of wrath. May
God save them from such doom!
1t is time to descend. The sun is on the
downhill side, and we have buried city yet
to see. Away we went through the soft ashes
which had been soaked by heavy rain the
night before, and now made yielding bed for
our feet, as by successive leaps Of ten or fif.
teen feet at every bound we came down, and
never paused to look back, and had no need to
rest till we were at the foot of the conc. This
operation did not occupy more than ten min
utes, and was full of excitement
Mounting our horses, we were called on to
4 pay q man who was dressed as a soldier,
marching around with gun on his shoulder.
"What for, pray?"
"Oh, the rascals who are here pretending
to be guides would plunder everybody who
fell into their hands, If it were not for the
guards which the Government places here for
your protection"
This being done, and half dozen more be.
ing paid for some service or other, we hardly
knew what, We got away, and had an easy and
pleasant ride down again to Resina.-Tucels
IN Europe
The ALPs.-My first view of the Alps was
at Berne had taken walk toward evening
to the "Engischo Promenade" as it is called,
mile or SO from the city. Thence a fine
view of the city is obtained, with its towering
cathedral steeple, and the ambergris-color
Aar winding around it as almost to insulate it
completely from the main land. had seated
myself, taken cup of coffee, and bread and
honey, was observing the people and the scene-
ry, and occasionally casting my eyes in the
direction of some huge white clouds, which
seemed to hang heavily upon the eastern hori-
zon. The thought occurred to me if those
clouds were but mountains, how magnificent
would they be; they would be beyond all con-
ception or all description they would satisfy
the most intense yearnings of the Imagination !;
they would fill forever that great desire of the
mind to feel, if only once an impression Of the
purely sublime.
l listened to the music for half an hour,
sauntered around under the trees, and then
strayed along the promenade little farther on,
away from the crowd; but my eye still con-
tnued, from time to time, to fasten itself in
voluntarily in the direction Of those white
clouds. They were the most changeable clouds
I had ever seen and the impression gradually
grew upon me that there was something un-
naturally hard and angular in their outline
Can, these, then, be mountains? I confess
this thought, as it first darted intomy mind,
occasioned a kind of trembling and sinking
through my whole frame. Is it possible that
those clouds in Heaven, so white, SO ethereal,
SO high above other clouds, that these are
mountains?
Two peasants were coming along at the
time, their coats and scythes under their arms
8 l walked up to them, and said:
n "Will you tell me if those clouds there are
really clouds or mountains?" They looked a,
e me with some astonishment for an instant
+ either at the energy of the action, or the sngu
r larity of the question, and then, with bow