if you persist in going, I will accompany you.”  We accordingly started to ascend the cone, which vomited fire and smoke, taking care to place ourselves on the windward side in ascending, and after much fatigue we arrived in about fifteen minutes close to the apex of the cone, after groping amidst the ashes and stumbling on a vein of red hot cinders.  My shoes were sadly burnt, my stockings singed and my feet scorched; my friend was less fortunate, for he tumbled down with his hands on a vein of red hot cinders and burned them terribly.  My great and principal apprehension in making this ascent was of stumbling upon holes slightly encrusted with ashes and that the whole might give way and precipitate me into some gouffre. On arrival at the summit of the cone we had just time to look down and perceive that there was a hole or gouffre, but whether it were very deep or not we could not ascertain, for a blast of fire and smoke issuing from it at this moment nearly suffocated us; we immediately lost no time in gliding down the ashes on the side of the cone on our breech, and reached its base in a few seconds, where we waited till an eruption took place from the other cone, in order to profit of the interval to ascend it also.  It required four minutes’ walk to reach the base of the other cone and about twelve to ascend to its apex; on arrival at the brink, where we remained about two minutes, we had just sufficient time to observe that there was no deep hole or bottomless gouffre as we expected, but that it formed a crater with a sort of slant and not exceeding thirty feet in depth to the bottom, which looked exactly like a lime-kiln, being of a dirty white appearance, and in continual agitation, as it were of limestones boiling; so that a person descending to the bottom of this crater would probably be scorched to death or suffocated in a few minutes, but would infallibly be ejected and thrown into the air at the first eruption.  I mean by this that he would not disappear or fall into a bottomless pit (as I should have supposed before I viewed the crater), but that his friends would be sure of finding his body either yet living or dead, outside the brink of the crater, within the radius made by the erupted stones and ashes.

Our guide now begged us for God’s sake to descend, as an eruption might be expected every minute.  We accordingly glided down the exterior surface of the cone among the ashes, on our breech, for it is impossible to descend in any other way and in a few seconds we reached its base.  Finding ourselves on a little level ground we began to run or rather wade thro’ the ashes in order to get out of reach of the eruption, but we had not gone thirty yards when one took place.  The stones clattered down with a frightful noise and we received a shower of ashes on our heads, the dust of which got into our eyes and nearly blinded us.  On reaching the brink of the old crater we stopped half an hour to enjoy the fine view of Parthenope in all her glory at sunrise.  We then descended rapidly, sometimes plunging down the ashes on our feet and sometimes gliding on our breech till we arrived at the place where we had descended from our mules, and this distance, which required one hour to ascend, cost us in its descent not more than seven minutes.