My imagination, I admit, was actively alive to the possible accidents which might have occurred; I followed, however, with all the confidence which my conviction of being under the care of a cautious leader, did not fail to inspire. My guide appeared highly gratified with the incident, asserting that it was the first time one deprived of sight had ever ventured there; and adding, that he was sure it would much surprise the king, when the circumstance became known to him, in the report which is daily made of the persons who visit the mountain. The ground was too hot under our feet, and the sulphurous vapour too strong to allow of our remaining long in this situation; and when he thought he had given us a sufficient idea of the nature of this part of the mountain, we retired to a more solid and a cooler footing; previous to which, however, he directed my walking-cane towards the flames, which shrivelled the ferrule, and charred the lower part;—this I still retain as a memorial. From hence we were conducted to the edge of a small crater, now extinguished, from whence about two months before, the Frenchman, rivalling the immortality of Empedocles— “Deus immortalis haberi, Dum cupit Empedocles ardentem frigidus Ætuam Insiluit.—”—HOR. and desirous of the glory of dying a death worthy of the great nation, plunged into the fiery abyss. The guide placed my hand on the very spot where he was stated to have last stood, before he thus rashly entered upon eternity. I was anxious to have proceeded up the cone to the border of the superior and large crater, but our guide objected, indeed refused to conduct us to it, unless we awaited the dawn of morning; the moon, he said, was fast descending, so that we should be involved in darkness before we could attain it; and that consequently it would be attended with risk in the extreme to make the attempt. This was a check to the completion of my anxious wishes, but our arrangements at Naples neither made it convenient to my friend, or myself, to remain until morning; nor would it have been pleasant to have spent some hours here without refreshment, more particularly as I had left my coat behind near the hermitage, and at this elevation we found it extremely cold. After spending a short time in examining some of the immense masses of calcined rock, some of them forming solid cubes of twenty feet diameter, and which had been at different times thrown out by the volcanic power; we began to retrace our steps towards the hermitage, distant, as our guide informed us, four miles, but which must have been an over-rated estimate. As we approached this latter place, we met a party ascending the mountain, with an intention of waiting the break of day, so as to enable them to reach the very summit.