But the sight of the
litters above, tilting up and down, and jerking from this side to
that, as the bearers continually slip and tumble, diverts our
attention; more especially as the whole length of the rather heavy
gentleman is, at that moment, presented to us alarmingly
foreshortened, with his head downwards.
The rising of the moon soon afterwards, revives the flagging
spirits of the bearers. Stimulating each other with their usual
watchword, 'Courage, friend! It is to eat macaroni!' they press
on, gallantly, for the summit.
From tingeing the top of the snow above us, with a band of light,
and pouring it in a stream through the valley below, while we have
been ascending in the dark, the moon soon lights the whole white
mountain-side, and the broad sea down below, and tiny Naples in the
distance, and every village in the country round. The whole
prospect is in this lovely state, when we come upon the platform on
the mountain-top--the region of Fire--an exhausted crater formed of
great masses of gigantic cinders, like blocks of stone from some
tremendous waterfall, burnt up; from every chink and crevice of
which, hot, sulphurous smoke is pouring out: while, from another
conical-shaped hill, the present crater, rising abruptly from this
platform at the end, great sheets of fire are streaming forth:
reddening the night with flame, blackening it with smoke, and
spotting it with red-hot stones and cinders, that fly up into the
air like feathers, and fall down like lead.
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