“I went to Baiae,” he says, “with my friends, Barbato and Barrilli.  Everything concurred to render this jaunt agreeable—­good company, the beauty of the scenes, and my extreme weariness of the city I had quitted.  This climate, which, as far as I can judge, must be insupportable in summer, is delightful in winter.  I was rejoiced to behold places described by Virgil, and, what is more surprising, by Homer before him.  I have seen the Lucrine lake, famous for its fine oysters; the lake Avernus, with water as black as pitch, and fishes of the same colour swimming in it; marshes formed by the standing waters of Acheron, and the mountain whose roots go down to hell.  The terrible aspect of this place, the thick shades with which it is covered by a surrounding wood, and the pestilent odour which this water exhales, characterize it very justly as the Tartarus of the poets.  There wants only the boat of Charon, which, however, would be unnecessary, as there is only a shallow ford to pass over.  The Styx and the kingdom of Pluto are now hid from our sight.  Awed by what I had heard and read of these mournful approaches to the dead, I was contented to view them at my feet from the top of a high mountain.  The labourer, the shepherd, and the sailor, dare not approach them nearer.  There are deep caverns, where some pretend that a great deal of gold is concealed; covetous men, they say, have been to seek it, but they never return; whether they lost their way in the dark valleys, or had a fancy to visit the dead, being so near their habitations.

“I have seen the ruins of the grotto of the famous Cumaean sybil; it is a hideous rock, suspended in the Avernian lake.  Its situation strikes the mind with horror.  There still remain the hundred mouths by which the gods conveyed their oracles; these are now dumb, and there is only one God who speaks in heaven and on earth.  These uninhabited ruins serve as the resort of birds of unlucky omen.  Not far off is that dreadful cavern which leads, they say, to the infernal regions.  Who would believe that, close to the mansions of the dead, Nature should have placed powerful remedies for the preservation of life?  Near Avernus and Acheron are situated that barren land whence rises continually a salutary vapour, which is a cure for several diseases, and those hot-springs that vomit hot and sulphureous cinders.  I have seen the baths which Nature has prepared; but the avarice of physicians has rendered them of doubtful use.  This does not, however, prevent them from being visited by the invalids of all the neighbouring towns.  These hollowed mountains dazzle us with the lustre of their marble circles, on which are engraved figures that point out, by the position of their hands, the part of the body which each fountain is proper to cure.

“I saw the foundations of that admirable reservoir of Nero, which was to go from Mount Misenus to the Avernian lake, and to enclose all the hot waters of Baiae.