It was cool, for the sun was hidden by
light clouds, but not cold. The ground under foot was slightly warm.
I had expected to feel some dread, or shrinking, or at least some
sense of insecurity, but I did not the slightest, then or afterwards;
and I think mine is the usual experience. I had no more sense of
danger on the edge of the crater than I had in the streets of Naples.
We next addressed ourselves to the Cone, which is a loose hill of
ashes and sand,--a natural slope, I should say, of about one and a
half to one, offering no foothold. The climb is very fatiguing,
because you sink in to the ankles, and slide back at every step; but
it is short,--we were up in six to eight minutes,--though the ladies,
who had been helped a little by the guides, were nearly exhausted,
and sank down on the very edge of the crater, with their backs to the
smoke. What did we see? What would you see if you looked into a
steam boiler? We stood on the ashy edge of the crater, the sharp
edge sloping one way down the mountain, and the other into the
bowels, whence the thick, stifling smoke rose. We rolled stones
down, and heard them rumbling for half a minute. The diameter of the
crater on the brink of which we stood was said to be an eighth of a
mile; but the whole was completely filled with vapor. The edge where
we stood was quite warm.
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