Thus there is plenty of most original entertainment, if only one will live with the people; it is so natural, that one almost becomes natural oneself. For this is the original birth-place of Pulcinello, the true national mask--the Harlequin of Pergamo, and the Hanswurth of the Tyrol. This Pulcinello now is a thoroughly easy, sedate, somewhat indifferent, perhaps lazy, and yet humorous fellow. And so one meets everywhere with a "Kellner" and a "Hausknecht." With ours I had special fun yesterday, and yet there was nothing more than my sending him to fetch some paper and pens. A half misunderstanding, a little loitering, good humour and roguery, produced a most amusing scene, which might be very successfully brought out on any stage.
The news that an eruption of lava had just commenced, which, taking the direction of Ottajano, was invisible at Naples, tempted me to visit Vesuvius for the third time. Scarcely had I jumped out of my cabriolet (zweirädrigen einpferdigen Fuhrwerk), at the foot of the mountain, when immediately appeared the two guides who had accompanied us on our previous ascent. I had no wish to do without either, but took one out of gratitude and custom, the other for reliance on his judgment,--and the two for the greater convenience. Having ascended the summit, the older guide remained with our cloaks and refreshment, while the younger followed me, and we boldly went straight towards a dense volume of smoke, which broke forth from the bottom of the funnel; then we quickly went downwards by the side of it, till at last, under the clear heaven, we distinctly saw the lava emitted from the rolling clouds of smoke.
We may hear an object spoken of a thousand times, but its peculiar features will never be caught till we see it with our own eyes. The stream of lava was small, not broader perhaps than ten feet, but the way in which it flowed down a gentle and tolerably smooth plain was remarkable. As it flowed along, it cooled both on the sides and on the surface, so that it formed a sort of canal, the bed of which was continually raised in consequence of the molten mass congealing oven beneath the fiery stream, which, with uniform action, precipitated right and left the scoria which were floating on its surface. In this way a regular dam was at length thrown up, in which the glowing stream flowed on as quietly as any mill-stream. We passed along the tolerably high dam, while the scoria rolled regularly off the sides at our feet. Some cracks in the canal afforded opportunity of looking at the living stream from below, and as it rushed onwards, we observed it from above.