The only light is reflected from the snow,
deep, hard, and white, with which the cone is covered. It is now
intensely cold, and the air is piercing. The thirty-one have
brought no torches, knowing that the moon will rise before we reach
the top. Two of the litters are devoted to the two ladies; the
third, to a rather heavy gentleman from Naples, whose hospitality
and good-nature have attached him to the expedition, and determined
him to assist in doing the honours of the mountain. The rather
heavy gentleman is carried by fifteen men; each of the ladies by
half-a-dozen. We who walk, make the best use of our staves; and so
the whole party begin to labour upward over the snow,--as if they
were toiling to the summit of an antediluvian Twelfth-cake.
We are a long time toiling up; and the head-guide looks oddly about
him when one of the company--not an Italian, though an habitue of
the mountain for many years: whom we will call, for our present
purpose, Mr. Pickle of Portici--suggests that, as it is freezing
hard, and the usual footing of ashes is covered by the snow and
ice, it will surely be difficult to descend.
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