ITALY, as the reader will remember, is in the shape of a boot, and you find Mt. Vesuvius on the instep of that boot. Leaving Naples by train we skirt along the beautiful bay by the same name and step off, as in the last chapter, at Pompeii, some fifteen miles from the starting point. Mt. Vesuvius now lifts its majestic form before us, and I am sure that if we should live to be as old as Methuselah, we can never forget its awful, yet picturesque and beautiful appearance. Take if you please a deep soup plate and turn it bottom upwards on your table. Next get a tea-cup and turn that bottom upwards on the center of the plate. Now imagine the table to be a broad, fertile field covered with vines. Imagine the plate to be fifteen miles in circumference, and that it swells from the plain and lifts itself up until the cup, rising sharp-pointed like a huge pyramid, reaches to the height of 4,200 feet. This is Mt. Vesuvius, and you must know that it is as black as charcoal and rough as a tree that has been a thousand times struck by lightning. It is hollow like a cup and is open at the top as the inverted cup would be if the bottom were out. [Illustration: _THE GAST ART PRESS, N.Y._ MOUNT VESUVIUS IN ACTION.] As I stand gazing at Vesuvius, it is slowly emitting a huge volume of white, sulphurous smoke or steam which rises straight like a mighty shaft of marble for a thousand feet above the crater, then gracefully curving, the column stretches itself across the glassy bay of Naples for ten miles or more until finally it joins itself with the fleecy clouds. What a picture it presents! There is the great city throbbing with life; the silvery bay flecked with white-winged and smoke-plumed vessels; there is the broad, fertile plain, covered with fruit-bearing vineyards, and dotted here and there with small, rude and dilapidated peasant villages; there are the black mountain and the white column of steam, clearly outlined against the rich blue, Italian sky. Such a scene, I am sure, could not fail to wake a song from the poet, or inspire the artist to put forth his best endeavors. There are about 650 volcanoes in existence, but Dr. Hartwig says, “For the naturalist’s researches, for the traveler’s curiosity and the poet’s song, Etna and Vesuvius surpass in renown all other volcanic regions in the world.” Knowing that Vesuvius is so noted, I am anxious to observe the phenomena closely, and to do this I must cross the plain and ascend the mountain. We can not go alone and it is too far to walk. Securing our horses and a guide, we set out on the journey. [Illustration: CLIMBING MOUNT VESUVIUS.]