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Then the earthquakes, ever menacing between Vesuvius and Etna; that of 1783, which wrought destruction throughout Calabria, laid Reggio in ruins, so that to-day it has the aspect of a newly-built city, curving its regular streets, amphitheatre-wise, upon the slope that rises between shore and mountain.
While, above all that, high uplifted against the opacity of the starless sky, a blood-red beacon burned on the summit of Vesuvius, the sombre glow of it reflected upon the underside of the masses of downward-rolling smoke as upon the belly of some slow-crawling, monstrous serpent. Suddenly Helen spoke once again, and with apparent inconsequence.
On the 13th, the Spitfire, Lieutenant Johnstone, towing the boats of the Vesuvius, crossed the bar at the Sulineh mouth of the Danube, and, having driven off the enemy, the marines and bluejackets landed and totally destroyed the town of Sulineh, by setting it on fire in every direction.
I was much pleased with Naples; stayed ten days; went over to Portici; Herculaneum and Pompeii, and ascended Mount Vesuvius: this was a spectacle the most awful and grand that I had ever witnessed the fire bursting every two minutes, and the noise with it like thunder: red-hot ashes came tumbling down continually where I stood sketching, many of which I brought away, and different pieces of the old lava which I hope to show you.
When the news comes of the birth of a son on Mount Vesuvius, master and man discuss multifarious and irrelevant topics in a fashion reminiscent of the conversation downstairs in the Shandy mansion while similar events are going on above. Later in the book we have long lists, or catalogues of things which resemble one of Sterne’s favorite mannerisms.
It is easy to conceive, that the size of a crater does not depend solely on the height and mass of the mountain, of which it forms the principal air-vent. This opening is indeed seldom in direct ratio with the intensity of the volcanic fire, or with the activity of the volcano. At Vesuvius, which is but a hill compared with the Peak of Teneriffe, the diameter of the crater is five times greater.
We were sent, attended by a boy with a lantern, through fields of dew-drenched barley and folded poppies, to a farmhouse overshadowed by four spreading pines. Exceedingly soft and grey, with rose-tinted weft of steam upon its summit, stood Vesuvius above us in the twilight.
George Sandys, who visited Vesuvius in 1611, after it had reposed for several centuries, found the throat of the volcano at the bottom of the crater "almost choked with broken rocks and trees that are falne therein."
He was a burning mountain of eloquence, a veritable human Vesuvius from whom, at will, flowed rhetoric or invective, satire or sentiment, as lava might flow from a living volcano. His mind spawned sonorous phrases as a roe shad spawns eggs. He was in all outward regards a shape of a man to catch the eye, with a voice to cajole the senses as with music of bugles, and an oratory to inspire.
The ground sounds hollow beneath a heavy tread, reminding one unpleasantly that but a thin crust covers the fiery abyss which might break through at any moment. With the exception of Vesuvius, this is the only surviving remnant of the fierce elemental forces which have devastated this coast in every direction.