A few days brought them in sight of the beautiful capital of the
south of Italy. The modern aphorism, "See Naples and then die," was
said in other words in old times, when the Caesars and Senators of
the empire enriched its beautiful shores with superb villas. There
is not in Europe a bluer sky and, true in its refection of the azure
firmament, a bluer sea than around Naples. The coast undulates to
the sea in verdant slopes, which in autumn have a rich golden hue
from the yellow tinge of the vine-leaf. Its classic fame casts a halo
around its charms; its history in the far past, its terrible mountain
and periodical convulsions from the burning womb of the earth, render
it an object of attraction to all classes.
Charles and Henry were quite alive to the impressions felt by tourists
when, whirled along by the panting steam-horse through the luxuriant
Campo Flice, they see for the first time the column of murky smoke
that rises to the clouds over the terrible Vesuvius. The old mountain
was then, as it is now, the terror and the attraction of tourists.
The catastrophes it has caused, the cities it has swallowed up in molten
ashes, the thunder of its roar when roused from its sleep, and the
unhealthy, sulphurous vapors ever vomited from its cone, render it a
veritable giant that the human race loves to see at a distance.
Our heroines were already acquainted with the "Light-house of the
Mediterranean," and from afar the lofty and ever-blazing, active Etna;
hence Vesuvius was not so attractive as a volcano as in the halo of
classic lore that hung around it.
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