May 22, 1897
This morning we took a cab for the depot to go to Pompeii. The station or depot is large, but very dirty. Four classes of tickets are sold. We went 2nd class. The cars are divided into three compartments, each one separate and a door opening on each side of the car. Each compartment seats 10, 5 on a side. The station at Pompeii is surrounded by restaurants, etc. and is only a few minutes walk from the entrance to the buried city, where we paid two frances or 40 cents each admission and were soon amidst the silent relics of the past. We first entered the museum where human bodies, remains of horses, dogs, cats, etc. were shown and also various domestic utensils, tools, etc. We then entered Pompeii. It was destroyed by the eruption of A.D. 79 and was rediscovered in 1748. About half of the old city has been excavated and the government is still working at it, using the admission fees for the purpose, boys doing most of the work, digging and wheeling at 40 centimes, not quite 10 cents a day. The streets of Pompeii were narrow. The sidewalks of brick or stone about 2’ – 4’ wide and the driveway only wide enough for a single chariot 5’ – 6’ wide and all paved with lava blocks which were deeply rutted at the sides from the wear. The main street was wide enough for two chariots to pass. Stone drinking fountains were at many corners and the stone face out of which the water came was badly worn in all cases by the drinkers putting their mouths against it to catch the water while the stone basin at each side showed the wear of the hands as they had supported themselves while drinking. Many of the houses were pretentious and comfortable in plan. In the court as you entered would be a basin for catching the rain water, then behind that an open court with flowers, fountains, etc. from which the bedrooms opened. Then behind that a dining room, then the kitchen, etc. Many of the walls had mythological paintings and frescoes on them. The Court of Justice was a large building surrounding an open court and at one end of which the tribunes sat on an elevated stage. The Forum or public square, the theatre, with its worn steps of stone to the galleries and the seats in the shape of an amphitheater for combats with man and beast, the shops – the butchers with a stone block in front for cutting up the meat, the bakers with its ovens, the oil dealers and wine merchants with the great stone jars, the jar and crockery dealers, the horse market, the bank with the mosaic in the floor at the entrance of “Salve lucruum” and many other things were intensely interesting. Some streets were not for chariots and these were blocked at each end with stone pillars, while all had 2 or 3 large stones laid here and there for stepping stones. Some of the floors were of beautiful mosaic work. We took lunch at the Hotel Diomede costing 5 liras or 1.00 and were presented with a written bill of 1.00 for the lunch and 40 centimes or 8cents for “service”. I asked the waiter what that was for and he said “sarvees, sarvees.” I asked him how he could furnish lunch without serving it and he shrugged his shoulders and said “40 centimes.” I said not much, but gave him 10 as a tip.
We then took a carriage for Vesuvius, the ascent being said to be five miles, but I think the way we feel it must be ten or fifteen. After driving a couple of miles and while the road was still comparatively good, we had to leave the cab and mount horses and off we started to climb Vesuvius with a guide at the head and a small boy with a whip hanging onto the tail of the last horse, and bringing up the rear with cuts and cracks of his whip every now and then at the legs of our horses who evidently were not entirely satisfied with their treatment the way they acted and when we told to quit the kid would just give them another clip and say “donta be ‘fraid.” He said the Misses horse was named “Macaroni” and mine was named “Beefsteak,” I suppose because they pounded him so. Our trip was to cost 12 frances or liras each. On starting horse back they wanted wine. After a canter of half a mile through the lava we came to another place where they wanted wine. We said no and we pushed on up the mountainside till we came to where a zigzag road had been constructed though the lava and ashes to the cone. Here was another house and the guide said “We get verra dry and this is the last chance” so as they had no water and nothing but bottled stuff we had some bottled lemon soda – cost 1.85 liras, then went on up the winding path to the beginning of the cone, where we had to leave our horses and proceed on foot. Here they had wine in a pail and wanted “somma for the guide.” We protested, then the Italians said “Signorina and signor hava help, taka holda rope, one pulla and the other pusha, vera hard, climba the mount.” So I asked what that would be and they said 2 francs each man. I said go ahead with the signorina and a husky Italian with a strap over his shoulder went first, madam hanging onto the strap and another big Italian pushing her from behind. I found the going so steep and hard in the soft ashes and lava that I soon utilized two of the others who had followed begging for a job. The path although zigzagged was very steep, over 50 or 55 degrees and we had frequently to rest. Here we were called on to pay a government tax of 7 lira $1.40. Soon we got to where the ground was smoking and the surface was covered with yellow sulphur(sic) and after awhile to the summit which as near as I could judge in the smoke was about 20 – 40 acres in area.
We approached the edge of the crater, the ground being the soft disintegrated lava and sulphur(sic) and stood at the edge within a yard or so of the yawning abyss, from which the smoke is continually ascending. I should judge the crater to be about 1000 feet across and from 1000 to 2000 feet deep with almost perpendicular sides. Way down at the bottom the smoke issued in clouds, sometimes very dense and at other times permitting us to see the rough looking bottom and the two fire holes – there were three in all but the third one was not visible from where we stood. From these openings in the bottom the fire and lava came out in periodical puffs or bursts with a hissing noise like thousands of immense skyrockets and all the time a rumbling increasing at these outbursts, in volume until the roar was like loud, but muffled thunder. Looking down the crater at these outbreaks we would see immense masses of red hot matter thrown up in a fiery rain, beautiful, but awful to behold, coming up apparently hundreds of feet and then falling back and never reaching the surface while we were there, except that some of the light ashes would come floating up. At the other side of the crater, down a ways below the summit is a fissure where the molten lava was coming out in a fiery stream, which is visible from Naples and show red at night. Our guides took some coppers and embedded them in the lava so as to show one face of the coin – charge 2 liras. We picked up some pieces of lava and got some bits of suphur(sic) and then as it had begun to rain and we did not feel that we were in the most secure place in the world, we told the guides we were ready to do down.
We started for the edge of the summit and there up popped another old man with a pail full of bottled wine “to treata da guides.” They looked very angry at our refusal. The government guide who had taken charge of us near the summit here said he would leave us and had to have a tip, so “half a franc want;” then we started down the cone with our four Italians, one on each side holding back. We didn’t zigzag going down, but just plowed straight down the steep side in the soft ash and lava stones, ankle deep and raising a terrible dust.
On reaching the place where we had left our horses, our four Italians wanted tip and wine. We refused – they got angry. I gave one of them ½ a lira to divide, he said “not enough, wanta a franca each.” Mrs. E. said to take the coin back and give them nothing, as we had paid them 8 francs for their service, and I did so. They stood muttering and sullen and we wished there had been more of a party. They finally asked for the half franc which I gave them and we rode off followed by anything but benedictions. Our guide and boy asked us to stop and “Treata to wine” at two places coming down, but we pressed on. The young scamp was begging all the way down. We finally reached our carriage, gave our guide an extra franc and the boy half a franc and were glad enough to exchange our saddles for a cushioned carriage, and were soon to the depot, tired, sore, sweaty and dirty, where the driver had to be tipped and where we took refuge from the beggars that had followed us, in the waiting room to which fortunately they had no access.
Vesuvius is 1256 meters or a little over 4000’ high. Vineyards covered the sides up to the cone until the eruption of 1872, but now the upper half of the mountain is black and bare, relieved only here and there by some shrubs or a clump of the yellow Vesuvius flower. The vineyards are, however, being extended year by year, higher up the sides and the vines and fig trees seem to thrive in the apparently dry and barren ashes. The farmers make their fences out of the lava stone. On reaching our hotel we found that four of our acquaintances on the steamer had made the ascent by the funicular or COG RR, which is much the easiest route, but which takes a whole day. They had an exciting experience. When they started to descend, they found that a stream of lava from the fissure had cut them off from the railway and their guides packed or beat a path for them across the hot lava which they crossed, but it was so hot they burned their feet through their shoes. It took us a couple of hours to clean up after reaching our hotel and in trying to go to sleep, we saw yawning abysses, chasms, volcanoes and precipicis(sic) into which we were about to fall. One ascent of an active volcano ought to do the average man for a lifetime.
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