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where, but gusts of sulphurous steam issued silently and invisibly from a
thousand little cracks and fissures in the crater, and were wafted to our
noses with every breeze. But so long as we kept our nostrils buried in
our handkerchiefs, there was small danger of suffocation.
Some of the boys thrust long slips of paper down into holes and set them
on fire, and so achieved the glory of lighting their cigars by the flames
of Vesuvius, and others cooked eggs over fissures in the rocks and were
happy.
The view from the summit would have been superb but for the fact that the
sun could only pierce the mists at long intervals. Thus the glimpses we
had of the grand panorama below were only fitful and unsatisfactory.
THE DESCENT.
The descent of the mountain was a labor of only four minutes. Instead of
stalking down the rugged path we ascended, we chose one which was
bedded
knee-deep in loose ashes, and ploughed our way with prodigious strides
that would almost have shamed the performance of him of the seven-league
boots.
The Vesuvius of today is a very poor affair compared to the mighty
volcano of Kilauea, in the Sandwich Islands, but I am glad I visited it.
It was well worth it.
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