THE TRAGEDY OF VESUVIUS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 142, 16 June 1906, Page 9

THE TRAGEDY OF VESUVIUS.

The following vivid narrative is contributed to, the Tribune by an English young lady: — I write from a villa three . miles from Naples, overlooking the bay. Wo have been • hero since the "30th .of ,- March, and an account of our experiences may interest your readors. We arrived on. that day — on a Friday evening. Our first view of Vesuvius, from the train, showed us a red path ■winding round tho mountain — a flaming crsrica which announced tho eruptioa. Two days after our arrival, although Vetuvias waa in a state of great and extraordinary activity, all that could bo seen waa a thin, dark stream of smoke lying unusually low across the bav> The vreather, which was very cold, changed suddenly on the following Thursday! morning. It became much w»rmet v , though the sky grew threatening as tbe wind dropped. Volumes of black cloud (lava desi) hung over tha town of Naples, and crept slowly towards us over the water. Wo went down into i Naples to find a breeze springing up", there. This whirled the 6harp powdery grit into our faces, and one tasted and saw nothing but dust. It lay very thickly in the public gardens, under tne shadow of the trees, and people had written on the surface, as one traces letters in sand. Tho passers-by all put up their umbrellas man attempt to keep it off. This, however j'^vas" a fjutilo effort: 'it crept down one's collar, and. into one's eyes; even the thickest veil could no 'keep it off — it possessed the most unpleasantly adhesive quality. THE BEGINNING OF THE TERB'OjK. On Ifriday _the eruption was -much more active.' The people cf Bosco. era C. sp (on the 'slopes of Vesuvius) had fled; nnd other villages were threatened by tho stream of descending lava. People — from the train— had already noticed a large building, in the middle of the firstnamed village, a mass of flames, whilo tho ground there was so covered with the dark-coloured dust that it wa3 impossible to guess at the nature of the crops beneath. All were in despair about their property. During the wholo of Friday it 'poured vvithrv/hat wo h<,lieved •to be ordinary rain. It tnrncd out to be the condensed volcanic htcain dissolving. The glass stood far too high for rain to have been possible, THE GREAT EBUPfIOX. On Saturday evening, while wo wete at dinner, a loud report broke in on tbo stillness. I say "report" becauss it i» so difficult to describe. On the wholej although I have seen it compared in j 6ome of the English papers to the sound of caiinon r it was as different from this as from a peal of thunder. It was« like the roar. of. some wild beast. Words sound thin and colourless, and it is im- • possible to describe the savage, wild \ •ound of it or of the weird effect upon ! the ear.* T should only confound myself in adjectives to sum it up in one sentence; the sound was so horribly 'alive '" (I could imagine the cry of countless wolves approaching it, nothing else.) This was repeated again and again as we stood upon the terrace, which is high above the bay. We remained listening, bat seeing nothing, while beneath oui feet — ovpr the water — the atmosphere hung heavy and lifeless in a thick mist. Only once did the wall of smoke owr the volcano open for an instant, and we saw the summit crowned with angry flames; a terribl© rendering of the old pictures of 'he&; 4 We could only \ratch for a moment the blaze of dark-red i towering against a black and desolate j sky; then th» emoke hid everything agdn, and tre could only listen to tho echoes, .'while an earthquake shock rattled the windows, and seemed to pene 1 trate- throush all the rooms. About half-past twelve that night there was another and yet more awful reverberation from Vesuvius; while a thunderstorm swept over tho sea, and •trange -coloured b'ghtning played across the bay. On Sunday the races 'were put off ow»g to the dost, the public gardens were I quite abandoned, and there was no music, as usual. Foghorns sounded everywhere ; as ships struggled through a thick mist of lava dusb towards evening the horizon looked lurid against a rough sea. An earthquake seemed probable to- 6ome, and everywhere.- the people were in ' a state of terrified expectancy. Along all tie streets candles were lit at little shrines added ft) the hundreds that are always to be seen in Naples. Those who were too poor to affoTd anything else bought a cheap religious print in colours and hung it outside the house ; and, of course, the churches were thronged. A curious feature throughout the day had been that, on the other side of the iogy the sun shone continuous jy, though, of course, without effect. Hitherto, as we returned from Naples, we had left the ■worst of the volcanic atmosphere behind. Now, however, we found that the cloud in all its black density was coming rtraighf. across to us. THE FALL OF DUST. As the evening drew on it spread ovei the garden like a blight, and the dust — previously only in thin- layere— became much thicker, until it/ simply rained in our faces. Ib was as if ground coffee was being poured over one. In the coarse of an boar and a half it haa become three-quarters of, an mcb thick on the paths. So penetrating is the quality of the dust that however tightly one may shut the window and shutters, nothing can te:p it ontsidt. All night the fall continued steadily. The whole air seem 3d breatfhless, aa tb«mg]i aira-iHng the faint reverberations fron Tonvins. Frew 'th« little, village behind Ui on tlw hills crane the clanging of a chnrch fceH ruag rather wildly at intervals ; & pathetic witJncss to the panic which was now spreading everywhere; the creeping terror of the unknorrn. Some of orrr party expressed a wish to see mort of the phenomena. Thii was granted to them, for on tlie follow- , ing (Monday) inonijij a heavy shower of wet volcanic dust proclaimed a new development. 1 awoke to find the windows covered with mad splashes and a, thick layer of grimo over everything. The garden was, of course, black with wet muu though th 6 gaideners proceeded as best they could to literally scrape a track along some of the paths. ' ' At 8 o'clock a.m. the sky was so black that we collected every light that we could find. I wta to join an expedition at 9 o'clock to drive as far as one cou'.d towards tfee volc*no, but thin excursion had, ci course, t« b« abr.cJor.?d. Later in tlw day two of tke party •wenfc in a jacht to ate what tkej could. Tina proved to be nothing, ,t» wh^n th-jy ft and themselves in tho milut of an oput^ue yeiluw dusc-fog it bccimo too dangeruu* to prooczd fj) At midday tke sky became lighter on the land «id?, but of a duil purple colour rrer the, saw, which locked perfectly lirid. It is impossible t«v describe the rtrange sight around us. Of conjee, I am trying (in the most moderate language possible) only to spenk of what we actually saw. Some 01, lh& papers have, fortunately, exaggerated, but tbe horrors aro numerous enough. They are, however, well known to cveiyone by now. We are still breathing duet, and— what

is curious to those who know tke 1 ilediterrancan— though the waters of the j . bay have reg lined \ their transparency, ■ . hio.9 can' atill ste cakes of mud resting L ' in place* on the seaweed. Tho effect on living things here is curious also. Birds 1 were found lying dead in the garden, and inaect life is much diminished, and 1 everywhere, all-pervading and disfiguring, lies thi dust