The Cruise of the Branwen

NAPLES inexplicable to local meteorologists from any other reason save Vesuvius. The Black Forest had been visited with the same powdery traces of volcanic matter. But where the Branwen lay in Naples Bay we were luckily in bright sunshine, and the wind took the worst of all the dust away from us. Still, all her engines had to be carefully protected, and the crew had to work double tides in cleaning up her decks and brass– work. Inland, and nearer Vesuvius, the scene was very different. No description can exaggerate the horror of that irremediable catastrophe. Many hundreds of families were not merely homeless, but landless too ; and there will be no prospect of vineyards on that soil for centuries. I walked upon lava ten feet thick, and at the depth of my walking-stick it was still red-hot, glowing with a dull, sinister persistence that suggested an Inferno of malignant heat. In other places the dull grey broken surface still smoked or steamed with angry clouds of noisome vapour. The journey from Somma to Ottajano re– vealed yet more destruction. A bare five hundred still remained out of a thriving population of some eighteen thousand. A fine dust of powdered lava had drifted three feet thick over everything, and in some streets it had piled up to the very top of the lamp-posts. The troops were doing all they could to relieve immediate distress and to keep order, giving away loaves of bread and distributing scanty supplies of water. All this had been incredible when we had only 31