Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/323

 Rh The drivers kept up an incessant shouting at the top of their voice whenever donkeys, with their loads of wood or rubbish, or rolling calèches, met us, or else warning the porters with their burdens, or other pedestrians, whether children or old people, to get out of the way. All the while, however, they drove at a sharp trot, without the least stop or check.

As you get into the remoter suburbs and gardens, the road soon begins to show signs of a Plutonic action. For as we had not had rain for a long time, the naturally ever-green leaves were covered with a thick gray and ashy dust; so that the glorious blue sky, and the scorching sun which shone down upon us, were the only signs that we were still among the living.

At the foot of the steep ascent, we were received by two guides, one old, the other young, but both active fellows. The first pulled me up the path, the other, Tischbein,—pulled I say: for these guides are girded round the waist with a leathern belt, which the traveller takes hold of; and when drawn up by his guide, he makes his way the more easily with foot and staff. In this manner we reached the flat from which the cone rises. Toward the north lay the ruins of the Somma.

A glance westward over the country beneath us, removed, as well as a bath could, all feeling of exhaustion and fatigue; and we now went round the ever-smoking cone, as it threw out its stones and ashes. Wherever the space allowed of our viewing it at a sufficient distance, it appeared a grand and elevating spectacle. In the first place, a violent thundering resounded from its deepest abyss; then stones of larger and smaller sizes were showered into the air by thousands, and enveloped by clouds of ashes. The greatest part fell again into the gorge: the rest of the fragments, receiving a lateral inclination, and falling on the outside of the crater, made a marvellous rumbling noise. First of all, the larger masses plumped