who have ascended it.

Two years ago an English merchant here laid a bet of 200
napoleons that he would go from Resina[2] to the top in an hour
and a half. Salvatore went with him, and they did it in an hour
and thirteen minutes. The Englishman rode relays of horses, but
the guide went the whole way on foot, and the best part of the
ascent had to drag up his companion He said it nearly killed him,
and he did not recover from it for several weeks; he is 53 years
old, but a very handsome man. He said, however, that the fatigue
of this exploit was not so painful as what he went through in
carrying the Duke of Buckingham to the top; he was carried up in
a chair by twelve men, and the weight was so enormous that his
shoulder was afterwards swelled up nearly to his head. When the
Duke got down he gave a great dinner (on the mountain), which he
had brought with him to celebrate the exploit. Salvatore said
that he continues to write to many scientific men in various
parts of Europe when anything remarkable occurs in the mountain,
and talked of Buckland, Playfair, and Davy. We got down to Resina
about half-past nine, and at ten embarked again and sailed over
to Castel-a-Mare, where we arrived at one o'clock.

[2] From Salvatore's house at Resina to the top of the
mountain is seven miles; from the Hermitage to the top,
3-1/3. It is a mile and 200 feet from the bottom of the
ascent (on foot) to the top, 800 feet from the point we
first gain to the bottom of the crater; the inner
crater (or black hill, as I call it) is 230 feet high
and 180 feet in circumference. The miles are Neapolitan
miles, about three-fourths of an English mile.

The next morning Mr. Watson and I got a six-oared boat (with
sails) and went to Sorrento. Castel-a-Mare and the whole coast
are beautiful. Landed a mile from Sorrento, and walked by a path
cut in the rock to the Cocomella, a villa with a magnificent
prospect of the Bay exactly opposite Naples.

Placido lunata recessu
Hinc atque hinc curvas perrumpunt aequora rupes.
Dat natura locum, montique intervenit imum
Litus et in terras scopulis pendentibus exit.

Then to the town to see the curiosities, which are the Piscine,
Tasso's house, and some very romantic caverns in a wild dell
under the bridge at Sorrento; all very well worth seeing, but
Tasso's house was locked,