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by the appellation of “ organic party.” But to return to myparty on the cone assailed by so many white hot projectiles;—we made our way as fast as possible to the bottom, andthen took advantage of every ridge and hill of lava toprotect ourselves from the streams of bounding stones, whichluckily were so refulgent as to give us warning of theirapproach. The great difficulty was, that we had to proceedwith our backs to the danger, and it was not prudent tomount our asses. Walking along on foot towards thehermitage, we were several times obliged to throw ourselvesflat upon our faces behind some rock or great stone thatwould deflect those rolling from the cone and cause themeither to bound over us or on one side. I and severalothers, had in this position many huge stones whistle overus, and then bound on above half a mile below us; we soonarrived at a high ridge of lava, which leads direct towardsthe hermitage, and upon which we were safe from thevolcanic missiles.
All the time that I have been alluding to, each explosionfrom the mountain, was accompanied by a tremour of theearth, which shook our frames from head to foot. Whilepouring out a goblet of wine to my friend Aime, the bottlechattered so against the vessel as to produce a novel andstartling effect. Aime, when stones and lightning werefalling around him, unwittingly exclaimed, “ this isworse than the battle of Austerlitz !” Such is habit!The people who sleejr quietly in their beds on the sides ofMount Vesuvius , have often very naively told me, that theywould not for the world abide in London , where the in-habitants are liable to all the burglaries and all the firesthey read of in the newspapers.
Steuart and I continued our excursions to Patria, and I wasso enamoured with the species of Robinson Crusoe sort oflife we led there, that I often think and dream of the place