The Portland daily press., 1892-06-21
IN FOREIGN LANDS,
Visit to vesuvius-A Gable Road Up the
Mountain-The Scenery Along the Route
In the Suburbs of Naples.
Correspondence of the Press.l


BAsLE, SWITZERLAND, June 1.-THE
time spent in the cars going from Saler-
no to Naples is full of anticipation. One
passes LIE Cava and Angri, stopping at
Pompeii and several other stations at no
great distance from the city. At LIE Cava
we got our first view of Vesuvius, which
was then belching fire and smoke in a
most terrific manner. No imagination
burning mountain realizes. The effect
upon the mind is that of surprise and
awe, of wonder and inquiry. The smoke
issuing from it is like that from chin
ney on fire as large as the largest amphi
theatre in the world it appears like the
smoking fires of city in full blaze. 1t
fills the heavens above and wraps the
earth beneath like dark pail. In fall
ing to the ground it resembles the smoke
and fog which sometimes overspreads a
large city. Its color is black or brown
or red, according to the atmospheric
changes which it meets, and also the
from the sky against the seething fires
underneath.
When one ascends to the mouth of the
crater the roar is like the roar of the ele-
ments let loose; it is the noise of thous-
and factories, the shackle of a million
looms. As one stands at the brink, his
feet so near the edge that one half step
would clear the rim, half stified as he is,
he feels that he must look again and
again. It is no wonder that almost every
year some traveller in his eagerness to
solve the mystery of their internal fires
moves one foot forward, and is gone.
The sight is typical of sin, as terrible in
character and aspect; and still it beckons
on, it fascinates. One feels to have
missed the sight of it would be to leave a
page of history out of life, to lose the
thunder of magnificent storm, and the
gorgeousness of the sky lit up by chain
lightning's glare, or to pass mighty
conf1agration by.
AS | looked the first time into this un-
earthly broiling cauldron | saw nothing
but an ocean of smoke; the second time
it was only smoke again, and strange to
say, the third time the smoke had partly
cleared and there came to view only the
crater's crust which looked like an
empty basket or huge untitled kettle.
| The fourth time it was choking smoke [
saw again; and when they tried to pull
me back and held me by my mantle, I
looked the fifth time and had view I
never shall forget 1t was an inferno.
Dante and Milton never have made their
| ideal hell more internal. Perhaps the
old founders of fire and birthstone
creeds, infant damnation and justice S
molten retribntion had seen the eruption
| of volcanic mountain; it may be they
had dreamed that the bottomless pit was
Atna or Vesuvius; for as one stands
above the turmoil at the crater's mouth
| it looks bottomless, its limit boundless,
its capacity endless.
| A sweet Catholic lady of the party,
who had accompanied me hither, stood
by, shaking with terror and gasping
from fear and smoke. She said "What
must hell be if this is so awfulr'
Cooks Road.
| Like all innovations, Cooks cable road
has robbed the ascent tosVesuviusgof half
its wild charm. There are still half a
dozen other paths, on donkey's backs, in
chairs and being pulled along by guides
with straps-and some go up the noun
tain wholly ON foot--without even a
guide; but people who like the ease and
forgetfulness of every kind of danger
take this cable road, and enjoy the drive
in carriage to the foot of the almost
perpendicular ascent, which is after all
only little bit of the whole trip thither.
| By whatever route one goes the old time
terrors of ascent have yielded to the easy
methods of today. But part of the way
leads through kind of purgatory on to
some Elysian fields.
Fine Views Going Up vesuvius.
Cooks carriages take you through
some of the dirtiest streets of darkest
Naples, and you see lower depths of sin
and misery than anywhere in a city OF
the same size