I have made two visits to Mount Vesuvius, the first in company with your acquaintance Mr. N——t. Leaving the carriage at Herculaneum, we mounted mules, and were attended by three men, whose business it is to accompany strangers up the mountain. Being arrived at a hermitage, called Il Salvatore, we found the road so broken and rough, that we thought proper to leave the mules at that place, which is inhabited by a French hermit. The poor man must have a very bad opinion of mankind, to choose the mouth of Mount Vesuvius for his nearest neighbour, in preference to their society. From the hermitage we walked over various fields of lava, which have burst out at different periods. These seemed to be[205] perfectly well known to our guides, who mentioned their different dates as we passed. The latest appeared, before we left Rome, about two months ago; it was, however, but inconsiderable in comparison of other eruptions, there having been no bursting of the crater, or of the side of the mountain, as in the eruption of 1767, so well described by Sir William Hamilton; but only a boiling over of lava from the mouth of the volcano, and that not in excessive quantity; for it had done no damage to the vineyards or cultivated parts of the mountain, having reached no farther than the old black lava on which soil had not as yet been formed. I was surprised to see this lava of the last eruption still smoking, and in some places, where a considerable quantity was confined in a kind of deep path like a dry ditch, and shaded from the light of the Sun, it appeared............