May 3rd, 1830
We sailed across the Bay to Resina, to see Herculaneum, the old and new excavations. At the new there are only seven or eight men at work; the old are hardly worth seeing. So much earth and cinders are mixed with the lava in the new part, that they might excavate largely if they would spend money enough; at present they have only excavated one or two houses, but have found some bronzes and marbles. The houses are laid open, just like those at Pompeii.
The next day Morier, Watson, and I set off to ascend Vesuvius; we rode on donkeys from Salvatore’s house to the bottom of the last ascent, which was rather less formidable than I expected, though fatiguing enough. Another party went up at the same time: one man of that party, Watson, and I walked up alone; the others were all lugged up. They take the bridles off the donkeys and put them on the men; the luggee holds by this tackle and the guide goes before him. After infinite puffing and perspiring, and resting at every big stone, I reached the top in thirty-five minutes. It was very provoking to see the facility with which the creatures who attended us sprang up. There was one fellow with nothing on but a shirt and half a pair of breeches, who walked the whole way from Resina with a basket on his head full of wine, bread, and oranges, and while we were slipping, and clambering, and toiling with immense difficulty he bounded up, with his basket on his head, as straight as an arrow all the time, and bothering us to drink when we had not breath to answer. I took three or four oranges, some bread, and a bottle of wine of him at the top, and when I asked Salvatore what I should pay him, he said two carlins (eightpence English). I gave him three (a shilling), and he was transported. It was a magnificent evening, and the sunset from the top of Vesuvius (setting in the sea) a glorious sight—
For the sun,
Declined, was hastening now with prone career
To the ocean’s isles, and in th’ ascending scale
Of heaven the stars, that usher evening, rose.
The view, too, all round is very grand; the towns round the Bay appear so clear, yet so minute. I had formed to myself a very different idea of the crater, of which the dimensions are very deceitful; it is so much larger than it appears. The bottom of the crater is flat, covered with masses of lava and sulphur, but anybody may walk all about it. At one end stands what ASCENT OF VESUVIUS looks like a little black hillock, from which smoke was rising, as it was from various crevices in different parts; that little hillock is the crater from which all eruptions burst. The mountain was provokingly still, and only gave one low grumble and a very small emission of smoke and fire while we were there; it has never been more tranquil. The descent is very good fun, galloping down the cinders; you have only to take care not to tumble over the stones; slipping is impossible. The whole ascent of the mountain is interesting, particularly in that part which is like a great ocean of lava, and where the guides point out the courses of the different eruptions, all of which may be distinctly traced. We got to the Hermitage just as it was dark; there was still a red tint round the western horizon, and the islands were dimly shadowed out, while the course of the Bay was marked by a thousand dancing lights. Salvatore has especial care of the mountain under the orders of Government, to whom he is obliged to make a daily report of its state, and he is as fond of it as a nurse of a favourite child, or a trainer at Newmarket of his best race-horse, and delights in telling anecdotes of old eruptions and phenomena, and of different travellers who have ascended it.
Two years ago an English merchant here laid a bet of 200 napoleons that he would go from Resina2 to the top in an hour and a half. Salvatore went with him, and they did it in an hour and thirteen minutes. The Englishman rode relays of horses, but the guide went the whole way on foot, and the best part of the ascent had to drag up his companion He said it nearly killed him, and he did not recover from it for several weeks; he is 53 years old, but a very handsome man. He said, however, that the fatigue of this exploit was not so painful as what he went through in carrying the Duke of Buckingham to the top; he was carried up in a chair by twelve men, and the weight was so enormous that his shoulder was afterwards swelled up nearly to his head. When the Duke got down he gave a great dinner (on the mountain), which he had brought with him to celebrate the exploit. Salvatore said that he continues to write to many scientific men in various parts of Europe when anything remarkable occurs in the mountain, and talked of Buckland, Playfair, and Davy. We got down to Resina about half-past nine, and at ten embarked again and sailed over to Castel-a-Mare, where we arrived at one o’clock.
The next morning Mr. Watson and I got a six-oared boat (with sails) and went to Sorrento. Castel-a-Mare and the whole coast are beautiful. Landed a mile from Sorrento, and walked by a path cut in the rock to the Cocomella, a villa with a magnificent prospect of the Bay exactly opposite Naples.
Placido lunata recessu
Hinc atque hinc curvas perrumpunt æquora rupes.
Dat natura locum, montique intervenit imum
Litus et in terras scopulis pendentibus exit.
Then to the town to see the curiosities, which are the Piscine, Tasso’s house, and some very romantic caverns in a wild dell under the bridge at Sorrento; all very well worth seeing, but Tasso’s house was locked, so we could not get to the terrace. Just as we arrived at Sorrento we found they were performing a ceremony which takes place there every year on the 1st of May, and there only—the benediction of the flowers, the ushering in the may.
With songs and dance they celebrate the day,
And with due honours usher in the may.
It was in the Archiepiscopal church, which was gaily adorned with hangings of various colours, gold and silver and flowers, full of people, all in their best attire. A priest in the pulpit opposite the Archbishop’s throne called on the representatives of the different parishes (seven in number), who advanced in succession, each bearing a huge cross fifteen or twenty feet high, entirely made of flowers, and adorned with THE BLOOD OF SAN GENNARO garlands and devices, all likewise of the most brilliant flowers, and, as each came up, a little cannon was fired off. They were blessed in succession, and then deposited around the throne of the Archbishop, who, after this ceremony was concluded, went up to the altar and celebrated High Mass. They told me that this festival had taken place at Sorrento from the remotest time.
After seeing the Piscine we went into a garden above, where there was a profusion of orange and lemon trees, loaded with ripe fruit; the oranges we pulled off the trees and ate; they were excellent, and as red as Morella cherries—
Whose fruit, burnished with golden rind,
Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true,
If true, here only, of delicious taste.
We could not stay long at Sorrento, and were four hours rowing across the Bay to Naples. Dined with Hill at the Villa Belvidere (a delicious villa on the Vomero), with a large, tiresome party, principally English.
Yesterday the miracle of the blood of San Gennaro was performed, and of course successfully; it will be repeated every morning for eight days. I went to-day to the Cathedral, where San Gennaro’s silver bust was standing on one side of the altar, surrounded by lights, and the vessel containing the blood on the other. Round the altar were ranged silver heads of various saints, his particular friends, who had accompanied him there to do him honour, and who will be taken this evening with him in procession to his own chapel. Acton and I went together, and one of the people belonging to the church seeing us come in, and judging that we wanted to see the blood, summoned one of the canons, who was half asleep in a stall, who brought out the blood, which is contained in a glass vase mounted with silver. It liquefies in the morning, remains in that state all day, and congeals again at night. A great many people were waiting to kiss the vessel, which was handed to us first. We kissed it, and then it went round, each person kissing it and touching it with his head, as they do St. Peter’s foot at Rome. San Gennaro and his silver companions were brought in procession from one of the other churches, all the nobility and an immense crowd attending. I had fancied that the French had exposed and put an end to this juggle, but not at all. They found the people so attached to the superstition that they patronised it; they adorned the Chapel of St. Januarius with a magnificent altarpiece and other presents. The first time (after they came to Naples) that the miracle was to be performed the blood would not liquefy, which produced a great ferment among the people. It was a trick of the priests to throw odium on the French, and the French General Championnet thought it so serious that he sent word that if the blood did not liquefy forthwith the priests should go to the galleys. It liquefied immediately, and the people were satisfied. Acton told me that nobody believed it but the common people, but that they did not dare to leave it off. It is what is called a false position to be in, when they are obliged to go on pretending to perform a miracle in which no men of sense and education believe, and in which it is well known they don’t any of them believe themselves. Miracles, if sometimes useful and profitable, are sometimes awkward incumbrances. Drove round the obscure parts of the town, and through dense masses of population, by the old palace of Queen Joan and the market place, which was the scene of Masaniello’s sedition. He was killed in the great church (in 1646).
Notes
2 From Salvatore’s house at Resina to the top of the mountain is seven miles; from the Hermitage to the top, 3⅓. It is a mile and 200 feet from the bottom of the ascent (on foot) to the top, 800 feet from the point we first gain to the bottom of the crater; the inner crater (or black hill, as I call it) is 230 feet high and 180 feet in circumference. The miles are Neapolitan miles, about three-fourths of an English mile.