410

LIFE OF COLONEL MACERONI.

at the bottom of the sea. This I discovered in the followingmanner. I experienced a very agreeable sensation fromdescending naked to the boiling river; and then, whenstreaming with perspiration and hissing hot, hastily runout and plunged from the rocks into the sea below. Thewater is as clear as the ambient air on mountain top; andswimming and diving about, I perceived a number of blackstreaks in the light-coloured sand about six or eight inchesbroad, some being circular, others zigzag. Diving down toexamine this curious appearance, I thrust my hands intothe black places, but glad enough was I to pull them outagain, for the blackened sand was boiling hot. In order toascertain the real heat of those places, I dived with a largewooden spoon and digging a hole in a black place, put in anew-laid egg, which became as well boiled as those Iimmersed in the Cocytus. The other, white, parts of thebottom of the sea are cool; but it is evident that the heatfrom the black ones is somewhat communicated to thewater, for at all times, save in the middle of a summer’sday, a copious steam issues from the surface of the seawherever any of those black lines appear. A joke was forsometime prevalent against me at Naples of my havingkilled a rich Dutch merchant, named Allewyne, by in-ducing him to imitate me in jumping into the sea on issuingfrom the vapour bath of the Cocytus, as I have abovedescribed. Allewyne and I being on intimate terms, I tookhim round to many of the curiosities of the place. He sawme jump from the Cocytus bath into the sea, and certainlydid the like; but if his constitution was unable to sustainthe shock that was no fault of mine. 1 did many thingsthat few other persons would or could perform. One day,for instance, a pic-nic party of ladies and gentlemen beingarranged to eat oysters at Fusaro, I wagered with one of theparty, an eminent English merchant, named Routh, that I