“Yesterday morning I went out to get a carriage to go up Mount Vesuvius, and on my way I was asked by a respectable looking man in the street if I had heard the news of the night. He then told me that hundreds of people, who had gone up the night before to see the burning lava in the Atrio di Cavallo, were dead. I had seen the mountain at eleven o’clock the night before, when there was a stream of lava running from the top of the cone into the Atrio—that is, the valley between Vesuvius and the adjoining hill, the Somma, where there seemed to be a lake of fire. Later in the night there was a tremendous eruption, a large crater opening suddenly between the Observatory and the Atrio di Cavallo, across the path of the visitors, it is said, of a mile in diameter. We started from Naples at eight o’clock. The view of the mountain was magnificent. An enormous cloud of dense white smoke was ascending to an immense height above the mountain, like great fleeces of cotton wool, quite unlike any cloud I ever saw. I could see the lava rushing from several openings to the right of and above the Observatory, but below the cone. The lava was still flowing from the cone into the Atrio, but no ash or dust was thrown up. We drove on to Resina, where the population were in fearful excitement, not knowing what to do, and apparently apprehensive of instant death—everybody making signs to us, and telling us to go back. We went on to the Piazza di Pugliano, where we were stopped and told that no one was allowed to go up the mountain, by order of the police. However, after some expostulation, I took a guide on the box and started again. [Sidenote: AN ISLAND OF FIRE.] “A few minutes afterwards we met a cart bringing down a dead body, and as we went on we saw other bodies—at least twelve—of which one only appeared to be living. They were frightfully burned on the face and hands, and some, which were carried on chairs, in a sitting position, were very ghastly objects. Further on we met people—officials, apparently—coming down, all warning us to go back. At last, when we had arrived at an elbow of the road not far below the Observatory, we met the officer who has charge of the Observatory, who said we could not go on; that the danger was imminent; that the lava was running across and down the road before us; that he had orders from the prefect of Naples to prevent any one ascending, and that we could not pass. My coachman was getting a little anxious, though I will do him the justice to say he was not afraid; so I consented not to take the carriage beyond a turn in the road above us to the right, especially as I did not wish to meet the lava in a narrow road where we could not turn the carriage. We left the carriage there, and ascended on foot with the guide by a path straight up the mountain-side.