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CHAPTER XXVI.
THE ASCENT OF VESUVIUS

November 1st.

Our excursion to Vesuvius was delayed for some days to await the arrival of the Franklin, which was to bring us the lieutenant who was our travelling companion in Germany last summer, and who wished to make the ascent in our company. At length, on Thursday, the firing of heavy guns told us that the great ship was coming into the harbor, and we were soon on board, where we received a most hearty welcome, not only from our kinsman, but from all the officers. The Franklin is the Flag-ship of our European squadron, and bears the flag of Admiral John L. Worden, the gallant officer whose courage and skill in fighting the Monitor against the Merrimack in Hampton Roads in 1862, saved the country in an hour of imminent peril. Well do we remember the terror in New York caused by the tidings of the sinking of the Congress and the Cumberland by that first ironclad – a new sea monster whose powers of destruction were unknown, and which we expected to see within a week sailing up our harbor, and demanding the surrender of the city. From this and other dangers, which we shudder to contemplate, we were saved by the little Monitor on that eventful day. As Admiral Worden commands only the fleet, the ship is commanded by an officer who bears the same honored name as the ship itself – Captain Franklin. We were very proud to see such men, surrounded by a fine set of officers, representing our country here. As we made frequent visits to the ship, we came to feel quite at home there. Not the least pleasant part of these visits was to meet several American ladies – the wife and daughters of Admiral Worden, and the wife of Captain Franklin. Men who have rendered distinguished services to their country are certainly entitled to a little domestic comfort on their long voyages; while the presence of such ladies is a benefit to all on board. When men are alone, whether in camp or on a ship, they are apt to become a little rough, and the mere presence of a noble woman has a refining influence over them. I can see it here in these young officers, who all seem to have a chivalrous feeling towards these ladies, who remind them of their own mothers and sisters at home. A more happy family I have not met on land or sea.

To their company we are indebted for much of the pleasure of our excursion to Vesuvius. On Saturday a large party was made up from the ship, which included the family of Admiral Worden, Captain and Mrs. Franklin, and half a dozen lieutenants. Our excellent consul at Naples, Mr. Duncan, and his sister, were also with us. We filled four carriages, and away we went through the streets of Naples at a furious rate; sweeping around the bay (along which, as we looked through arched passages to the right, we could see villas and gardens stretching down to the waters), till we reached Resina, which stands on the site of buried Herculaneum. Here we turned to the left, and began the ascent. And now we found it well that our drivers had harnessed three stout horses abreast to each carriage, as we had a hard climb upward along the blackened sides of the mountain.

We soon perceived the wide-spread ruin wrought by successive eruptions of the volcano. Over all this mountain side had rolled a deluge of fire, and on every hand were strewn the wrecks of the mighty desolation. It seemed as if a destroying angel had passed over the earth, blasting wherever his shadow fell. On either side stretched miles and miles of lava, which had flowed here and there slowly and sluggishly like molten iron, turning when interrupted in its course, and twisted into a thousand shapes.

But if this was a terrible sight, there was something to relieve the eye, as we looked away in the distance to where the smile of God still rests on an unsmitten world. As we mounted higher, we commanded a wider view, and surely never was there a more glorious panorama than that which was unrolled at our feet on that October morning. There was the bay of Naples, flashing in the sunlight, with the beautiful islands of Ischia and Capri lying, like guardian fortresses, off its mouth, and ships coming and going to all parts of the Mediterranean. What an image was presented in that one view of the contrasts in our human life between sunshine and shadow – blooming fields on one hand, and a blackened waste on the other; above, a region swept by fire, and below, gardens and vineyards, and cities and villages, smiling in peace and security.

We had left Naples at nine o'clock, but it was noon before we reached the Observatory – a station which the Italian Government has established on the side of the mountain for the purpose of making meteorological observations. This is the limit to which carriages can ascend, and here we rested for an hour. Our watchful lieutenants had thoughtfully provided a substantial lunch, which the steward spread in a little garden overlooking the bay, and there assembled as merry a group of Americans as ever gathered on the sides of Vesuvius.

From the Observatory, those who would spare any unnecessary fatigue may take mules a mile farther to the foot of the cone, but our party preferred the excitement of the walk after our long ride. In ascending the cone, no four-footed beast is of any service; one must depend on his own strong limbs, unless he chooses to accept the aid of some of the fierce looking attendants who offer their services as porters. A lady may take a chair, and for forty francs be carried quite to the top on the shoulders of four stout fellows. But the more common way is to take two assistants, one to go forward who drags you up by a strap attached around his waist, to which you hold fast for dear life, while another pushes behind. Our young lady had three escorts. She drove a handsome team of two ahead, while a third lubberly fellow was trying to make himself useful, or, at least, to earn his money, by putting his hands on her shoulders, and thus urging her forward. I believe I was the only person of the party, except the Consul and one lieutenant, who went up without assistance. I took a man at first, rather to get rid of his importunity, but he gave out sooner than I did, stopping after a few rods to demand more money, whereupon I threw him off in disgust, and made the ascent alone. But I would not recommend others to follow my example, as the fatigue is really very great, especially to one unused to mountain climbing. Not only is the cone very steep, but it is covered with ashes; so that one has no firm hold for his feet, but sinks deep at every step. Thus he makes slow progress, and is soon out of breath. He can only keep on by going very slowly. I had to stop every few minutes, and throw myself down in the ashes, to rest. But with these little delays, I kept steadily mounting higher and higher.

As we neared the top, the presence of the volcano became manifest, not merely from the cloud which always hangs about it, but by smoke issuing from many places at the side. It seemed as if the mountain were a vast smouldering heap out of which the internal heat forced its way through every aperture. Here and there a long line of smoke seemed to indicate a subterranean fissure or vein, through which the pent-up fires forced their way. As we crossed these lines of smoke the sulphurous fumes were stifling, especially when the wind blew them in our faces.

But at last all difficulties were conquered, and we stood on the very top, and looked over the awful verge into the crater.

Those who have never seen a volcano are apt to picture it as a tall peak, a slender cone, like a sugar loaf, with a round aperture at the top, like the chimney of a blast furnace, out of which issues fire and smoke. Something of this indeed there is, but the actual scene is vastly greater and grander. For, instead of a small round opening, like the throat of a chimney, large enough for one flaming column, the crater is nearly half a mile across, and many hundreds of feet deep; and one looks down into a yawning gulf, a vast chasm in the mountain, whose rocky sides are yellow with sulphur, and out of which the smoke issues from different places. At times it is impossible to see anything, as dense volumes of smoke roll upward, which the wind drives toward us, so that we are ourselves lost in the cloud. Then they drift away, and for an instant we can see far down into the bowels of the earth.

Standing on the bald head of Vesuvius, one cannot help some grave reflections, looking at what is before him only from the point of view of a man of science. The eruption of a volcano is one of the most awful scenes in nature, and makes one shudder to think of the elements of destruction that are imprisoned in the rocky globe. What desolation has been wrought by Vesuvius alone – how it has thrown up mountains, laid waste fields, and buried cities! What a spectacle has it often presented to the terrified inhabitants of Naples, as it has shot up a column not only of smoke, but of fire! The flames have often risen to the height of a mile above the summit of the mountain, their red blaze lighting up the darkness of the night, and casting a glare over the waters of the bay, while the earth was moaning and trembling, as if in pain and fear.

And the forces that have wrought such destruction are active still. For two thousand years this volcano has been smoking, and yet it is not exhausted. Its fury is still unspent. Far down in the heart of the earth still glow the eternal fires. This may give some idea of the terrific forces that are at work in the interior of the hollow globe, while it suggests at least the possibility of a final catastrophe, which shall prove the destruction of the planet itself.

But if the spectacle be thus suggestive and threatening to the man of science, it speaks still more distinctly to one who has been accustomed to think that a time is coming when "the earth, being on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat," and who beholds in these ascending flames the prophetic symbol of the Dies Iræ – the Day of Doom – that shall at last end the long tragedy of man's existence on the earth.

As I stood on the edge of the crater and looked down into the awful depths below, it seemed as if I beheld a scene such as might have inspired the description of Dante in his Inferno, or of John in the Apocalypse; as if that dread abyss were no unfit symbol of the "lower deep" into which sink lost human souls. That "great gulf" was as the Valley of Hell; its rocky sides, yellow with sulphurous flames – how glistening and slippery they looked! – told of a "lake of fire and brimstone" seething and boiling below; those yawning caverns which were disclosed as the smoke drifted away, were the abodes of despair, and the winds that moaned and shrieked around were the wailings of the lost; while the pillar of cloud which is always rising from beneath, which "ceases not day nor night," was as "the smoke of torment," forever ascending.

He must be a dull preacher who could not find a lesson in that awful scene; or see reflected in it the dangers to which he himself is exposed. Fire is the element of destruction, even more than water. The "cruel, crawling foam" of the sea, that comes creeping towards us to seize and to destroy, is not so treacherous as the flames, darting out like serpents' tongues, that come creeping upward from the abyss, licking the very stones at our feet, and that seem eager to lick up our blood.

The point where we stood projected over the crater. The great eruption three years since had torn away half the cone of the mountain, and now there hung above it a ledge, which seemed ready at any moment to break and fall into the gulf below. As I stood on that "perilous edge," the crumbling verge of the volcano, I seemed to be in the position of a human being exposed to dangers vast and unseen, to powers which blind and smother and destroy. As if Nature would fix this lesson, by an image never to be forgotten, the sun that was declining in the west, suddenly burst out of the cloud, and cast my own shadow on the column of smoke that was rising from below. That shadowy form, standing in the air, now vanishing, and then reappearing with every flash of sunlight, seemed no inapt image of human life, a thing of shadow, floating in a cloud, and hovering over an abyss!

Thus musing, I lingered on the summit to the last, for such was the fascination of the scene that I could not tear myself away, and it was not till all were gone, and I found myself quite alone, that I turned and followed them down the mountain side. The descent is as rapid as the ascent is slow. A few minutes do the work of hours, as one plunges down the ashy cone, and soon our whole party were reassembled at its base. It was five o'clock when we took our carriages at the Observatory; and quite dark before we got down the mountain, so that men with lighted torches (long sticks of pine, like those with which travellers make their way through the darkness of American forests), had to go before us to show the road, and with such flaring flambeaux, and much shouting of men and boys, of guides and drivers, we came rolling down the sides of Vesuvius, and a little after seven o'clock were again rattling through the streets of Naples.

Yesterday was our last day in this city, as we leave this afternoon for Athens and Constantinople, and as it was the Sabbath, we went on board the Franklin for a religious service. Such a service is always very grateful to an American far from home. The deck of an American ship is like a part of his country, a floating island, anchored for the moment to a foreign shore: and as he stands there, and sees around him the faces of countrymen, and hears, instead of the language of strangers, his dear old mother tongue, and looks up and sees floating above him the flag he loves so well – that has been through so many battles and storms – he cannot keep down a trembling in his heart, or the tears from his eyes.

And how delightful it is, on such a spot, and with such a company, to join in religious worship. The Franklin has an excellent chaplain – one who commands the respect of all on board by his consistent life, though without any cant or affectation, while his uniform kindness and sympathy win their hearts. The service was held on the gun-deck, where officers and men were assembled, sitting as they could, between the cannon. The band played one or two sacred airs, and the chaplain read the service with his deep, rich voice, after which it was my privilege to preach to this novel congregation of my countrymen. Altogether the occasion was one of very peculiar interest to me, and I hope it was equally so to others.

And so we took leave of the Franklin, with most grateful memories of the kindness of all, from the Admiral down. It is pleasant to see such a body of officers on board of one of our national ships. None can realize, except those who travel abroad, how much of the good name of our country is entrusted to the keeping of such men. They go everywhere, they appear in every port of Europe and indeed of the world; they are instantly recognized by their uniform, and are regarded, much more than ordinary travellers, as the representatives of our country. How pleasant it is to find them uniformly gentlemen– courteous and dignified, preserving their self-respect, while showing proper respect to others. I am proud to see such a generation of young officers coming on the stage, and trust it may always be said of them, that (taking example from the gallant captains and admirals who are now the pride of our American Navy,) they are as modest as they are brave. Such be the men to carry the starry flag around the globe!

CHAPTER XXVII.
GREECE AND ITS YOUNG KING

Athens, November 9th.

If the best proof of our fondness for a place be that we leave it with regret, few cities will stand higher in our remembrance than Naples, from which we turned away with many a lingering look, as we waved our adieus to our friends, who answered us from the deck of the Franklin. Never did the bay look more beautiful than that Monday afternoon, as we sailed away by Capri and Sorrento, and Amalfi and the Bay of Salerno. The sea was calm, the sky was fair. The coast, with its rocky headlands and deeply indented bays, was in full sight, while behind rose the Apennines. The friends were with us who were to be our companions in the East, adding to our animation by their own, as we sat upon the deck till the evening drew on. As the sun went down, it cast such a light over the sea, that the ship seemed to be swimming in glory, as we floated along the beautiful Italian shores. A little before morning we passed through the Straits of Messina, between Scylla and Charybdis, leaving Mount Etna on our right, and then for an hour or two stood off the coast of Calabria, till we ran out of sight of land, into the open sea of the Mediterranean.

Wednesday found us among the Ionian islands, and we soon came in sight of the Morea, a part of the mainland of Greece. We had been told to watch, as we approached Athens, for sunset on the Parthenon; but it was not till long after dark that we entered the harbor of the Piræus, and saw the lights on the shore, and our first experience was anything but romantic. At ten o'clock we were cast ashore, in darkness and in rain; so that instead of feeling any inspiration, we felt only that we were very wet and very cold. While the commissionaire went to call a carriage, we waited for a few moments in a café, which was filled with Greek soldiers who were drinking and smoking, and looked more like brigands than the lawful defenders of life and property. Such was our introduction to the classic soil of Greece. But the scene was certainly picturesque enough to satisfy our young spirits (for I have two such now in charge), who are always looking out for adventures. Soon the carriage came, and splashing through the mud, we drove to Athens, and at midnight found a most welcome rest in our hotel.

But sunrise clears away the darkness, and we look out of our balcony on a pleasant prospect. We are in the Hotel Grande Bretagne, facing the principal square, and adjoining the Royal Palace, in front of which the band comes to play under the King's windows every day. Before us rises a rocky hill, which we know at once to be the Acropolis, as it is strown with ruins, and crowned with the columns of a great temple, which can be no other than the Parthenon.

Turning around the horizon, the view is less attractive. The hills are bleak and bare, masses of rock covered with a scanty vegetation. This desolate appearance is the result of centuries of neglect; for in ancient times (if I have read aright), the plain of Athens was a paradise of fertility, and where not laid out in gardens, was dense with foliage. Stately trees stood in many a grove besides that of the Academy, while the mountains around "waved like Lebanon." But nature seems to have dwindled with man, and centuries of misrule, while they have crushed the people, have stripped even the mountains of their forests.

But with all the desolateness around it, Athens is to the scholar one of the most interesting cities in the world. Its very ruins are eloquent, as they speak of the past. We have been here six days, and have been riding about continually, seeking out ancient sites, exploring temples and ruins, and find the charm and the fascination increasing to the last.

The Parthenon has disappointed me, not in the beauty of its design, which is as nearly perfect as anything ever wrought by the hand of man, but in the state of its preservation, which is much less perfect than that of the temples at Pæstum. Time and the elements have wrought upon its marble front; but these alone would not have made it the ruin that it is, but for the havoc of war: for so massive was its structure that it might have lasted for ages. Indeed, it was preserved nearly intact till about two centuries ago. But the Acropolis, owing to the advantages of its site (a rocky eminence, rising up in the midst of the city, like the Castle of Edinburgh), had often been turned into a fortress, and sustained many sieges. In 1687 it was held by the Turks, and the Parthenon was used as a powder magazine, which was exploded by a bomb from the Venetian camp on an opposite hill, and thus was fatally shattered the great edifice that had stood from the age of Pericles. Many columns were blown down, making a huge rent on both sides. It is sad to see these great blocks of Pentelican marble, that had been so perfectly fashioned and chiselled, now strown over the summit of the hill.

And then, to complete the destruction, at the beginning of this century, came a British nobleman, Lord Elgin, and having obtained a firman from the Turkish Government, proceeded deliberately to put up his scaffolding and take down the friezes of Phidias, and carried off a ship-load of them to London, where the Elgin Marbles now form the chief ornament of the British Museum. The English spoilers have indeed allowed some plaster casts to be taken, and brought back here – faint reminders of the glorious originals. With these and such other fragments as they have been able to gather, the Greeks have formed a small museum of their own on the Acropolis. In those which preserve any degree of entireness, as in the more perfect ones in London, one perceives the matchless grace of ancient Greek sculpture. There are long processions of soldiers mounted on horses, and priests leading their victims to the sacrifice. In these every figure is different, yet all are full of majesty and grace. What a power even in the horses, as they sweep along in the endless procession; and what a freedom in their riders. The whole seems to march before us.

But many of the fragments that have been collected are so broken that we cannot make anything out of them. We know from history that there were on the Acropolis five hundred statues (besides those in the Parthenon), scattered over the hill. Of these but little remains – here an arm, or a leg, or a headless trunk, which would need a genius like that of the ancient sculptor himself to restore it to any degree of completeness. It is said of Cuvier that such was his knowledge of comparative anatomy, that from the smallest fragment of bone he could reconstruct the frame of a mastodon, or of any extinct animal. So perhaps out of these remains of ancient art, a Thorwaldsen (who had more of the genius of the ancient Greeks than any other modern sculptor,) might reconstruct the friezes and sculptures of the Parthenon.

But perhaps it is better that they remain as they are – fragments of a mighty ruin, suggestions of a beauty and grace now lost to the world; and which no man is worthy to restore.

Even as it stands, shattered and broken, the Parthenon is majestic in its ruins. Until I came here I did not realize how much of its effect was due to its position. But the old Greeks studied the effect of everything, and thus the loftiest of positions was chosen for the noblest of temples. As Michael Angelo, in building St. Peter's at home, said that he "would lift the Pantheon into the air," (that is, erect a structure so vast that its very dome should be equal to the ancient temple of the gods,) so here the builders of the Parthenon lifted it into the clouds. It stands on the very pinnacle of the hill, some six hundred feet above the level of the sea, and thus is brought into full relief against the sky. On that lofty summit it could be seen from the city itself, which lies under the shadow of the Acropolis, as well as from the more distant plain. It could be seen also from the tops of the mountains, and even far out at sea, as it caught and reflected back the rays of the rising or the setting sun. Its marble columns, outlined against the blue sky of Greece, seemed almost a temple in the clouds.

This effect of position has been half destroyed, at least for those living in Athens, by the barbarous additions of later times, by which, in order that the Acropolis might be turned into a fortress, the brow of the hill was surmounted with a rude wall, which still encircles it, and hides all but the upper part of the Parthenon from view. In any proposed "restoration," the first thing should be to throw down this ugly wall, so that the great temple might be seen to its very base, standing as of old upon the naked rocks, with no barrier to hide its majesty, from those near at hand as well as those "beholding it afar off."

But, for the present, to see the beauty of the Parthenon, one must go up to the Acropolis, and study it there. We often climbed to the summit, and sat down on the steps of the Propylæa, or on a broken column, to enjoy the prospect. From this point the eye ranges over the plain of Athens, bounded on one side by mountains, and on the other by the sea. Here are comprised in one view the points of greatest interest in Athenian history. Yonder is the bay of Salamis, where Themistocles defeated the Persians, and above it is the hill on which the proud Persian monarch Xerxes sat to see the ruin of the Greek ships, but from which before the day was ended he fled in dismay. To such spots Demosthenes could point, as he stood in the Bema just below us, and thundered to the Athenian people; and by such recollections he roused them to "march against Philip, to conquer or die." A mile and a half distant, but in full sight, was the grove of the Academy, where Plato taught; and here, under the Acropolis, is a small recess hewn in the rock which is pointed out as the prison of Socrates, and another which is called his tomb. This inconstant people, like many others, after putting to death the wisest man of his age, paid almost divine honors to his memory.

Like the Coliseum at Rome, the Parthenon is best seen by moonlight, for then the rents are half concealed, and as the shadows of the columns that are still standing fall across the open area, they seem like the giants of old revisiting the place of their glory, while the night wind sighing among the ruins creeps in our ears like whispers of the mighty dead.

When our American artist, Mr. Church, was here, he spent some weeks in studying the Parthenon and taking sketches, from which he painted the beautiful picture now in the possession of Mr. Morris K. Jesup. He studied it from every point and in every light – at sunrise and sunset, and by moonlight, and even had Bengal lights hung at night to bring out new lights and shadows. This latter mode of illumination was tried on a far grander scale when the Prince of Wales was here a few days since on his way to India, and the effect was indescribably beautiful as those mighty columns, thus brought into strange relief, stood out against the midnight sky.

But if the Parthenon be only a ruin, the memorial of a greatness that exists no more, fit emblem of that mythology of which it was the shrine, and of which it is now at once the monument and the tomb, there is something to be seen from this spot which is not a reminder of decay. Beneath the Acropolis is Mars Hill, where Paul stood, in sight of these very temples, and cried, "Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious" [or, as it might be more correctly rendered, "very religious"]; "for as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To the Unknown God. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God that made the world, and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands" [here we may believe he pointed upward to the Parthenon and other temples which crowned the hill above him]; "neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things." That voice has died into silence, nor doth remain upon the barren rock a single monument, or token of any kind, to mark where the great Apostle stood. But the faith which he preached has gone into all the world, and to-day the proudest dome that overlooks the greatest capital of the modern world, bears the name of St. Paul; and not only in London, but in hundreds of other cities, in all parts of the earth, are temples consecrated with his name, that tell of the Unknown God who has been declared to men, and of a faith and worship that shall not pass away.

It is a long leap in history, from Ancient to Modern Greece; but the intervening period contains so much of sadness and of shame, that it is just as well to pass it by. What need to speak of the centuries of degradation, in which Greece has been trampled on by Roman and Goth and Turk, since we may turn to the cheering fact that after this long night of ages, the morning has come, and this stricken land revives again? Greece is at last free from her oppressors, and although the smallest of European kingdoms, yet she exists; she has a place among the nations, and the beginning of a new life, the dawn of what may prove a long and happy career.

It is impossible to look on the revival of a nation which has had such a history without the deepest interest, and I questioned eagerly every one who could tell me anything about the conditions and prospects of the country. I find the general report is one of progress – slow indeed, but steady. The venerable Dr. Hill, who has lived here nearly forty-five years, and is about the oldest inhabitant of Athens, tells me that when he came, there was not a single house– he lived at first in an old Venetian tower – and to-day Athens is a city of fifty thousand inhabitants, with wide and beautiful streets; with public squares and fountains, and many fine residences; with churches and schools, and a flourishing University; with a Palace and a King, a Parliament House and a Legislature, and all the forms of constitutional government.

Athens is a very bright and gay city. Its climate favors life in the open air, and its streets are filled with people, whose varied costumes give them a most picturesque appearance. The fez is very common, but not a turban is to be seen, for there is hardly a Turk in Athens, unless it be connected with their embassy. The most striking figures in the streets are the Albanians, or Suliotes, whose dress is not unlike that of the Highlanders, only that the kilt, instead of being of Scotch plaid, is of white cotton frilled, with the legs covered with long thick stockings, and the costume completed by a "capote" – a cloak as rough as a sheepskin, which is thrown coquettishly over the shoulders. These Highlanders, though not of pure Greek blood, fought bravely in the war of independence, meriting the praise of Byron: —