I left Florence about three o’clock on Tuesday afternoon, and went in a vettura to the Maschere; a poor little inn, about eighteen miles distant; there we slept, but I let my companions proceed without me the next day, meaning to follow them on foot. A wet morning detained me some time, and when at length I set off, the clouds were still hanging low on the mountains. I had dressed myself as lightly as possible, and I felt it rather cold. The walk was however delightful. The scenery everywhere fine, but so equally so, that it did not tempt the pencil; cultivated valleys, sloping hills, and woody mountains, succeeded one after another. The highest point of the pass is called the Fiuta; it has the reputation of being always windy, and when I crossed it, fully maintained its fame. I was much amused by the figures who passed me, closely wrapped up in their cloaks, with their hats tied fast upon their heads, and shrinking from the blast. The northern side is more wild than the south. There is less wood, and more rock, and one or two remarkable crags. They are however ragged crags, and have nothing of the solidity of the Alpine masses. Further on are considerable cliffs, which are kept naked and perpendicular, by the action of water at the bottom. These produce a very different effect on the mind from the precipices of the Alps, whose firmness seems to defy vegetation. I left the road before reaching Pietra Mala, in order to see what is called the Volcano. I was directed to a tract of broken ground of no great extent, but though frequently within a hundred yards of the spot, it was a considerable time before I discovered the flames, putting my hand in the meanwhile to every crack in the soil, to try if I could feel any warmth, and imagining from time to time that I perceived a sulphureous smell; at last however, I succeeded, and it was certainly very curious to see a portion of a field on fire without any apparent cause. The flames issued from a space twenty-two feet long and five feet wide, and there were traces of its action for about four times that space. It is always of more consequence in winter and wet weather, than it is in summer. A plant was growing within a yard of the flames, and corn within about two yards, evidently ripened by their warmth beyond the rest of the field. There was no visible smoke, not the least smell of sulphur, but that of a clear coal fire; no soot is deposited, but a trifling white efflorescence is observable on some of the stones exposed to the flames. The soil about it seemed to be clay mixed with fragments of limestone, and the flames issued from among these fragments, or perhaps partially among rocks of the same nature _in situ_, but I think they were all detached pieces. The cliffs at a little distance appeared to be also of limestone, but in some little brooks which the road passes, the rock had rather the appearance of a grit. There are likewise some black ragged crags in the neighbourhood.