Cook's Tour

The New York Times's scholarly Herbert L. Matthews (TIME, April 12) was with the Allied armies fighting on the plain of Naples. For a day Correspondent Matthews dropped his war reporting, hired a guide, went up Vesuvius in a jeep and afoot to sightsee. Then he wrote home:

"We used the volcano . . . today as a grandstand seat to watch the war spread out far below us. ... It was a good lesson in humility, for who could hang on to the edge of the crater peering fearfully into the seething, glowing mass that every few seconds exploded molten lava into the air, and not think what puny forces 4,000-pound blockbusters unleash as compared to this monstrosity of nature? . . .

"Now it could never to any of us be just a postcard picture. ... It was something alive that played an important part in our existence. . . . It is a superb observation point, of course, and the Germans had placed a sound detector and searchlight at one place, and four of them had used the Cook's Hotel halfway up for observation and radio transmission.

"Across the road from the hotel is a terraced cafe, whose owners greeted us like tourists, with post cards and souvenirs. A man raved angrily about the Germans, who had taken his donkeys, cows and pigs. 'Every man from whom the Germans have stolen anything should be given a rifle,' he said.

"Out over the plain twelve of our B-25s unloaded their bombs on a German concentration, and there, too, smoke billowed up, black and grey. That was our imitation of nature. Ten minutes later the bombers passed over our heads and two of the escorting fighters came down and 'buzzed' the crater of Vesuvius. We envied them that bird's-eye view. For us there was nothing but to toil up afoot.

"At last we reached the base of the cone and there we found bubbles in the lava underfoot that steamed and hissed like a witch's cauldron. Our own guide said nothing would induce him to go any farther, but another came along with an English officer who said he would take us on. First he wanted to make a volcano of his own. Taking an iron rod, he pierced the hot shell of a cauldron, showing us molten red inside with fiery stalactites dripping from the top. Here was Dante's Inferno in miniature. There was some thing demoniacal about it. Yet we were soon to see that magnified a thousand times.

"We were [close] to where showers of molten lava were falling. ... As we scrambled up, one shower dropped a few pieces within a yard or two of us. ... It seemed a little like walking between rain drops, but the top was too temptingly close and we scrambled ahead. ... It took all our resolution not to run back. .. .

"And there we were looking at one of the most fearsome sights in the world. Clouds of steam obstructed our view, but now and then they thinned out to show us the red, seething mass of lava whose fierce heat came at us in gusts. The steepness of the sides, yellowed with sulfur, surprised me. They sheered off below us like a cliff. And every 30 seconds came that roar and explosion as the angry mass shot its lava into the air.

"The fearful sight was more than nerves could bear for long.

"So back we ran, thanking our stars for our steel helmets and casting contemptuous glances out toward the Neapolitan plain, where puny bombs and shells still were bursting. It seems we still have a lot to learn about destructive forces."

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