It stands tall and
pointed and graceful against a lovely sky. Its little cloud waves from
it like a plume. At night the mountain is swallowed by the dark. But
the red rivers down its slopes glare in the sky. It is beautiful and
terrible like a tiger. Thousands of people have loved it. They have
climbed it and looked down its crater. It is like looking into the heart
of the earth. One of these travelers wrote of his visit in 1793. He
said:
"For many days Vesuvius has been in action. I have watched it from
Naples. It is wonderfully beautiful and always changing. On one day huge
clouds poured out of the top. They hung in the sky far above, white as
snow. Suddenly a cloud of smoke rushed out of another mouth. It was as
black as ink. The black column rose tall and curling beside the snowy
clouds. That was a picture in black and white. But at another time I saw
one in bright colors.
"On a certain night there were towers and curls and waves and spires of
flames leaping from the top of the mountain. Millions of red-hot stones
were shot into the sky. They sailed upward for hundreds of feet, then
curved and fell like skyrockets.
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