CHAPTER XX

_The Baron slips through the world: after paying a visit to Mount Etna
he finds himself in the South Sea; visits Vulcan in his passage; gets on
board a Dutchman; arrives at an island of cheese, surrounded by a sea
of milk; describes some very extraordinary objects--Lose their compass;
their ship slips between the teeth of a fish unknown in this part of the
world; their difficulty in escaping from thence; arrive in the Caspian
Sea--Starves a bear to death--A few waistcoat anecdotes--In this
chapter, which is the longest, the Baron moralises upon the virtue of
veracity._

Mr. Drybones' "Travels to Sicily," which I had read with great pleasure,
induced me to pay a visit to Mount Etna; my voyage to this place was not
attended with any circumstances worth relating. One morning early, three
or four days after my arrival, I set out from a cottage where I had
slept, within six miles of the foot of the mountain, determined to
explore the internal parts, if I perished in the attempt. After three
hours' hard labour I found myself at the top; it was then, and had been
for upwards of three weeks, raging: its appearance in this state has
been so frequently noticed by different travellers, that I will not
tire you with descriptions of objects you are already acquainted with. I
walked round the edge of the crater, which appeared to be fifty times
at least as capacious as the Devil's Punch-Bowl near Petersfield, on
the Portsmouth Road, but not so broad at the bottom, as in that part
it resembles the contracted part of a funnel more than a punch-bowl. At
last, having made up my mind, in I sprang feet foremost; I soon found
myself in a warm berth, and my body bruised and burnt in various parts