ance of black coils, as of
a huge cable laid in parallel folds. These coils, as you advance, are
explained; for you will see the dull red lava sweltering out from
underneath one of those great blocks, in a long and narrow wave, which
does not subside, but stiffens as it cools, and, in this form, is pushed
forward by the succeeding wave. In another part, the lava is flowing in
a small stream, about a foot in breadth, just as the metal in a
foundery, but more slowly, and the surface dimmed with a black scaly
film; on raising which, with your stick, the flame bursts out. It flows
so slowly that, sometimes, you must watch it narrowly before you detect
the motion; you may be looking at such a stream and not suspect it to be
this stealthy Phlegethon, till suddenly it is seen to stir, like a vast
serpent moving in its sleep.

To the left of them, as they stood in this crater, the wall of the
mountain enclosed them in, utterly without vestige of any kind of
verdure, bare brown ore, with fissures exhaling their sulphurous vapour;
before them, extending to and meeting the horizon, lay the tumbled
masses of black lava, with the glowing at intervals of their dull red
furnaces, and every where the same vapour steaming up; and at their
right rose the conical summit from which Vesuvius was discharging its
artillery, the sides of which are covered with a green and yellow
sulphur that, elsewhere, might be mistaken at a distance for some sort
of moss or other vegetation, but the eye has learnt to expect here
nothing of so peaceful a nature. From this cone volleys of huge stones
were perpetually issuing, with thunder-like explosions; and, above all,
that majestic column of smoke! Smoke seems a very ordinary word,
expressive of a very ordinary thing, but it forms here no ordinary
spectacle. At each explosion it bursts up impetuously, struggling like
frenzy from its imprisonment, revolving with amazing rapidity, thick,
turbid, ruddy, mixed with flame; as it rises, it revolves less rapidly,
and becomes more pure, more calm; ever rising higher, and expanding in
greater and purer volumes, it at length fills the heavens, towering
majestically, whiter than the whitest cloud, and floating off in light
etherial vapours, which the blue sky gladly receives. "The spirit of
Beauty," said Mildred, as she gazed upwards, "has triumphed."

As she looked with increasing interest on this spectacle, the spirit of
enterprise grew strong within her, and she w