Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857 Vol 2.djvu/147

98 Nothing could exceed the impressive beauty of this forest scenery, with its hoary moss-grown oak and beech trees, its silence broken only by the rustling fallen leaves, the bark of the distant shepherd's dog, and the far-above cry of the descending charcoal burner to his laden mules. I discern the two craters, now deep circular lakes, through the interlaced branches, and having topped one of the shoulders of the mountain now, far below me; the further dark and clear, the nearer turbid and yellow green.

I descend amongst aged trunks and overarching limbs, and pass over masses of rounded lava blocks—tufa—cemented lapilli. I am at the margin of the first lake. All is quietude; the soft breeze of a quiet winter's afternoon, fans across the embosomed water, from the early wheat-fields and the furrowed acres of the opposite steep slopes, and brings the gentle ripple lapping, amongst the roots of the old hazleshazels [sic] at my feet.

Off before me, and to my left crowning the slope, are the grey ruins of some ancient church or castle, a few piled stones only. Far above me, and to the right, nestled against the lava crags, behind and above it, standing out white and clear, I see the strong buttressed mass of the monastery of St. Michael.

Not a sound but the rustle of the dead leaves, beneath the pawing of my little stallion mule, breaks the solemn silence; how hard it is to realize that this noble and lovely scene, full of every leafy beauty, that life and time can bestow, upon fair Nature's aspect, was once the innermost bowl of a volcano; that every stone around me, now glorious in colour with moss and lichen, sedum and geranium, was once a glowing mass, vomited from out that fiery and