Chapter 15. Vesuvius Devastates The Region Of Naples

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_ CHAPTER XV. Vesuvius Devastates the Region of Naples

We have in other chapters described the terrible work of Mount Vesuvius in the past, from the far-off era of the destruction of Pompeii down to the end of the last century. There comes before us now another frightful eruption, one of the greatest in its history, that of 1906. For thirty years before this outbreak the mighty volcano had been comparatively quiet, rarely ceasing, indeed, to smoke and fume, but giving little indication of the vast forces buried in its heart. It showed some sympathy with Mont Pelee in 1902, and continued restless after that time, but it was not until about the middle of February, 1906, that it became threatening, lava beginning to overflow from the crater and make its lurid way down the mountain's side.

It was in the middle of the first week of April that these indications rose to the danger point, the flow of lava suddenly swelling from a rivulet to a river, pouring in a gleaming flood over the crater's rim, and meeting the other streams that came streaming down the volcano's rugged flank. While this went on the mountain remained comparatively quiet, there being no explosions, though a huge cloud of volcanic ash and cinders rose high in the air until it hung over the crater in the shape of an enormous pine tree, while from it a shower of dust and sand, soon to become terrible, began to descend upon the surrounding fields and towns.

Dangerous as is Vesuvius at any time, the people of the vicinity dare its perils for the allurement of its fertile soil. A ring of populous villages encircles it, flourishing vineyards and olive groves extend on all sides, and the hand of industry does not hesitate to attack its threatening flanks. The intervals between its death-dealing throes are so long that the peasants are always ready to dare destruction for the hope of winning the means of life from its soil.

 

THE RIVERS OF LAVA.

All this locality was now a field of terror and death. Down on the vineyards and villages poured the smothering ashes in an ever increasing rain; toward them slowly and threateningly crawled the fiery serpents of the lava streams; and from their homes fled thousands of the terror-stricken people, frantic with horror and dismay. A number of populous villages were threatened by the lurid lava streams, the most endangered being Bosco Trecase, with its 10,000 inhabitants. Toward this devoted town poured steadily the irresistible flood of molten rock. The soldiers who had been hurried to the front sought to divert its flow by digging a wide ditch across its course and throwing up a high bank of earth, but they worked in vain. The demon of destruction was not to be robbed of its prey. The liquid stream advanced like a colossal serpent of fire, turning its head like a crawling snake to the right and left, but keeping steadily on toward the fated town. The ditch was filled; the bank gave way; the first house was reached and burst into flames; the creeping stream of fire pushed on to the next houses in its way; only then did the despairing people desert their homes and flee for their lives, carrying with them the little they could snatch of their treasured possessions.

F. Marion Crawford, the novelist, who was present at this scene, thus describes the flight of the terrified people:

"I saw men, women and children and infants, whose mothers carried them at the breast or in their aprons, fleeing in an endless procession. Dogs, too, and cats were on the carts, and sometimes even chickens, tied together by the legs, and piles of mattresses and pillows and shapeless bundles of clothes. All were white with dust. Under the lurid glare I saw one old woman lying on her back across a cart, ghastly white and, if not dead already of fear and heat and suffocation, certainly almost gone. We ourselves could hardly breathe."

It was on Saturday, the 7th, that Bosco Trecase became the prey of the river of molten rock. During that night and the following day the crisis of the eruption came. The observatory on the mountain side was occupied by Professor Matteucci, his assistant, Professor Perret, of New York, and two domestics, all others having been sent away. Their description of the scene in which they found themselves is vividly picturesque. At midnight the situation in the observatory was terrible. The forces of the earthquake were let loose and the ground rocked so that it was almost impossible to stand. The roaring of the main crater was deafening, while the volcano poured forth its contents like a fountain, and the electric display was terrifying, constant claps of thunder following the lurid flashes of lightning, which gave the sky a blood-red hue.

Shortly after three o'clock in the morning the explosive energy of the mighty mass culminated. The whole cone burst open with a tremendous earthquake shock, from the heart of the recently silent mountain came a deafening roar, and red-hot rocks, like the balls from nature's mighty artillery, were hurled a half mile into the air, while a dense mass of ashes and sand was flung to three or four times this height. All the next day the terrible detonation kept up, and a hail of bullet-like stones poured downward from the skies. Rarely has a more terrible Sunday been seen. It was as if the demons of earth and air were let loose and were seeking to destroy man and his puny works.

 

THE CRISIS OF THE ERUPTION.

This frightful explosion of the 8th of April was the worst of the dreadful display of volcanic forces, but the work kept up with diminishing intensity much of the following week. The ashes and cinders continued to pour down in suffocating showers, covering the ground to a depth of four or five feet in the vicinity of the volcano and to a considerable depth at Naples, ten miles away. The sun disappeared behind the thick cloud that filled the air, and the scene resembled that described by Pliny more than eighteen hundred years before.

Of Bosco Trecase nothing was left but the large stone church and a few houses. Another river of lava reached the outskirts of Torre del Greco, and a third stopped at the cemetery of Torre Annunziata. Those towns escaped, but thousands of acres of fertile cultivated land, with farm houses and stock, were destroyed. The peninsular railway up the mountain was ruined and the large hotel burned. One writer tells the following tale of what he saw on that fatal Saturday and Sunday:

"On the road I met hundreds of families in flight, carrying their few miserable possessions. The spectacle of collapsing carts and fainting women was frequently seen. When one reached the lava stream a stupefying spectacle presented itself. From a point on the mountain between the towns I saw four rivers of molten fire, one of which, 200 feet wide and over 40 deep, was moving slowly and majestically onward, devouring vineyards and olive groves. I witnessed the destruction of a farm house enveloped on three sides by lava. Immediately overhead the great crater was belching incandescent rock and scoria for an incredible distance. The whole scene was wreathed with flames, and a perpetual roar was heard. Ever and anon the cone of the volcano was encircled with vivid electric phenomena, amid which a downpour of liquid fire on all sides of the crater was revealed in magnificent awfulness. In the evening there was a frightful shock of earthquake, which was repeated at two o'clock on Sunday morning. Simultaneously the lava streams redoubled their onrush, and men, women and children fled precipitately toward the sea. The lava had invaded the road behind them."

 

A REIGN OF TERROR.

The great loss of life was due to the vast fall of ashes, which crushed in hundreds of roofs and buried the occupants within the ruins of their homes. In all the neighboring towns buildings were destroyed in great numbers, an early estimate being that fully 5,000 houses had been partly crushed or utterly destroyed. On the Ottajano side of the mountain, where the ashes fell in greatest profusion, all the houses of the villages were damaged, and Ottajano itself was left a wreck, several hundred dead bodies being taken from its ruins. In Naples the ash fall was so incessant that those who could afford it wore automobile coats, caps and goggles, while the people generally sought to save their eyes and faces by the aid of paper masks and umbrellas. The drivers of trolley cars were obliged to wear masks of some transparent material under the vizors of their caps.

 

DISASTERS AT SAN GIUSEPPE AND NAPLES.

There were two special disasters attended by serious loss of life. On the 9th, while a congregation of two hundred or more were attending mass in the church at San Giuseppe, the roof crushed in from the weight of ashes upon it and fell upon the worshippers below, few or none of whom escaped unhurt. Fifty-four dead bodies were taken from the ruins and a large number were severely injured. The Mayor of the town was dismissed from his office for leaving his post of duty in the face of danger.

The second disaster, one of the same character, took place at Naples. This was on Tuesday, April 10th. Just previous to it the people had been marching in religious processions through the streets, to render thanks for the apparent cessation of the activity of Vesuvius. Motley but picturesque processions were these, headed by boys carrying candles, which burned simply in the full sunshine and bearing aloft images of the Madonna or saints, clad in gorgeous robes of cheap blue or yellow satin. Their joy was suddenly changed to grief by tidings of a frightful disaster. The roof of the Monte Oliveto market, fronting on the Toledo, the main thoroughfare, had suddenly crushed in, burying more than 200 people beneath its heavy fall.

The market had been crowded with buyers and their children, and it was the busiest hours of the day in the great roofed courtyard, covering a space 600 feet square, when, with scarcely a tremor of warning, there came a frightful crash and a dense cloud of dust covered the scene, from out of which came heartrending screams of agony. The volcanic ash which, unnoticed, had gathered thickly on the roof, had broken it in by its weight.

The news set the people frantic with grief and indignation. They insisted that the authorities knew that the roof was unsafe and had neglected their duty. Cursing and screaming in their intense excitement, they surrounded the market, endeavoring with frantic haste to remove the heavy beams from beneath which came the appealing calls for help, many of the rescuers sobbing aloud as they worked. It required a large force of police and soldiers to keep them back and permit the firemen and other trained workers to carry on more systematically the work of relief. Twelve persons proved to have been killed, two fatally injured, twenty-four seriously hurt and over a hundred badly bruised and cut. Among these were many children, whose parents had sent them to do the marketing without a dream of danger, and the grief of the parents was intense. The Duke of Aosta, Prefect of Naples, directed the work of rescue, while his wife assisted in the care of the injured. As the Duchess bent in the hospital to give a cooling drink to a badly bruised little girl she felt a kiss upon her hand. Looking down, she saw a woman kneeling at her feet, who gratefully said: "Your Excellency, she is all I have. I am a widow. May God reward you."

While this scene of horror was taking place in Naples the fate of the town and villages grouped around the foot of the volcano seemed as hopeless as ever. Early on the 10th the showers of ashes and streams of lava diminished and almost ceased, but later the same day they began again, and the terrified inhabitants feared that a catastrophe like that which buried Pompeii and Herculaneum was about to visit them. The lava which reached the cemetery of Torre Annunziata turned in the direction of Pompeii as if to freshly entomb that exhumed city of the past. A violent storm of sulphurous rain fell at San Giuseppe, Vesuviana and Sariano, and on all sides the fall of sand and ashes came on again in full strength. Even with the sun shining high in the heavens the light was a dim yellow, in the midst of which the few persons who still haunted the stricken towns moved about in the awful stillness of desolation like gray ghosts, their clothing, hair and beards covered with ashes.

 

THE ERUPTION RESUMED.

A typical case was that of Torre del Greco. Though for thirty hours the place had been deserted, a few ghostly figures could be seen at intervals when the vivid flashes of lightning illuminated the gloom-covered scene, wandering desolately about, hungry and thirsty, their throats parched by smoke and dust, yet unable to tear themselves away from the ruins of their late comfortable homes.

So deep was the ash fall that railway or tramway travel to the inner circle of towns was impossible, and the great depth of fallen dust choked the roads so as to render travel by carriage or on foot very difficult. A party of officials made a tour of inspection by automobile, visiting a number of the town, but were prevented by the state of the roads from reaching others. Ottajano was thus cut off from travel, and a heavy fall of ashes followed the officials in their retreat. At Bosco Trecase the lava had gathered into a lake, already growing solid on top, but a mass of liquid rock beneath.

The lava carried vast masses of burnt stone and sulphur on its surface, like dross on melted lead, and nothing was visible toward Bosco Trecase but endless acres of dark scoriae, broken here and there by the greenish, curling smoke of sulphur. At one point a great cone pine tree, torn up by its roots and turned to black charcoal, stuck out of the mass at a sharp angle. The air was almost unbearable, the heat intense, and few could long bear the dangers and discomfort of the situation.

 

SCENES OF HORROR.

The greatest depth of ashes encountered was in the vicinity of Ottajano. Here large areas were buried to a depth of several feet. Soldiers had been sent there with military carts, carrying provisions and surgical appliances, with orders to lend their aid in the work of relief. They found it almost impossible to make their way through the deep fine dust, and the tales of horror and heroism they had to tell resembled those that must of old have been borne to Rome by the fleeing inhabitants of Pompeii.

Efforts were made to remove the children and old persons in the carts, but when these had gone a few hundred feet it was found that, although there were four horses harnessed to each vehicle, they could not pull their loads through the ashes. This caused a panic among the children, who expected to be buried in the incessant fall from the volcano, and they fled in all directions in the darkness and blinding rain. Searching parties went after them, but in spite of continuous shouting and calling no trace was found of the little ones, and numbers of the children were undoubtedly smothered by the ashes and sand.

Many of the inhabitants had been buried in the ruins of their houses, and the scenes when the victims were unearthed were often piteous and terrible. The positions of the bodies showed that the victims had died while in a state of great terror, the faces being convulsed with fear. Three bodies were found in a confessional of one of the fallen churches. One body was that of an old woman who was sitting with her right arm raised as though to ward off the advancing danger. The second was that of a child about eight years old. It was found dead in a position, which would indicate that the child had fallen with a little dog close to it and had died with one arm raised across its face, to protect itself and pet from the crumbling ruins. The third body, that of a woman, was reduced to an unrecognizable mass. These three victims were reverently laid side by side while a procession of friends and relatives offered up prayers beside them.

One soldier rode his horse through the ashes reaching up to its flanks, calling out, "Who wants help?" He was rewarded by hearing a woman's voice reply in weak tones and, springing from his horse, he floundered through the ashes to the ruined walls of a house from which the voice seemed to come. As he made his way through the soft, treacherous layer of scoriae which surrounded the destroyed habitation, and with difficulty worked his way toward the building the soldier shouted words of encouragement and, climbing over a heap of ruins and braving a toppling wall, entered the building. In the cellar he found the bodies of three children. Near them was a woman, barely alive, who by almost superhuman efforts for hours had succeeded in freeing herself from a mass of debris which had fallen upon her. The soldier picked the woman up in his arms and carried her to a place of safety. It was found that both legs were broken and that she had been badly crushed about the body.

Some extraordinary escapes from death took place. A man and his four children were rescued after having been lost in the ash-covered wilderness for fifty-six hours. They were terribly exhausted, and were reduced almost to skeletons.

Robert Underwood Johnson, one of the editors of the "Century Magazine", who happened to be in Rome at the time of the eruption, made one of a party who ventured as near the scene of destruction as they could safely approach. From his graphic story of his experiences we copy some of the most interesting details.

 

AN AMERICAN OBSERVER.

"We caught a train for Torre Annunziata, three miles this side of Pompeii and two miles from the southern end of the wedge of lava which destroyed Bosco Trecase. We had a magnificent view of the eruption, eight miles away. Rising at an angle of fifty degrees, the vast mass of tumult roundness was beautifully accentuated by the full moon, shifting momentarily into new forms and drifting south in low, black clouds of ashes and cinders reaching to Capri. At Torre del Greco we ran under this terrifying pall, apparently a hundred feet above, the solidity of which was soon revealed in the moonlight. The torches of the railway guards added to the effect, but greatly relieved the sulphurous darkness.

"We reached Torre Annunziata at three in the morning. There was little suggestion of a disaster as we trudged through the sleeping town to the lava, two miles away. The brilliant moon gave us a superb view of the volcano, a gray-brown mass rising, expanding and curling in with a profile like a monstrous cyclopean face. But nothing in mythology gives a suggestion of the fascination of this awful force, presenting the sublime beauty above, but in its descent filled with the mysterious malignance of God's underworld.

"We reached the lava at a picturesque cypress-planted cemetery on the northern boundary of Torre Annunziata. It was as if the dead had effectually cried out to arrest the crushing river of flames which pitilessly engulfed the statue of St. Anne with which the people of Bosco Reale tried to stay it, as at Catania the veil of St. Agathe is said to have stayed a similar stream from Mount Etna.

"We climbed on the lava. It was cool above but still alive with fire below. We could see dimly the extent of the destruction beyond the barrier of brown which had enclosed the streets, torn down the houses, invaded the vineyards and broken Cook's railways. A better idea of the surroundings was obtained at dawn from the railway. We saw north what was left of Bosco Trecase--a great, square stone church and a few houses inland in a sea of dull, brown lava. North and east rose a thousand patches of blue smoke like swamp miasma. All was dull and desolate slag, with nowhere the familiar serpentine forms of the old lava streams. In terrible contrast with the volcanic evidences were strong cypresses and blooming camelias in a neighboring cemetery.

"We ate a hasty luncheon before sunrise, when the great beauty of the scene was revealed. The column now seemed higher and more massive, rising to three times the height of Vesuvius. Each portion had a concentric motion and new aspects. The south edges floating toward the sea showed exquisite curved surfaces, due to the upper moving current. It was like the decoration of the side of a great sarcophagus. As a yellow dust hangs over Naples and hides the volcano, I count myself fortunate to have seen all day from leeward this spectacle of changing, undiminishing beauty.

"The wedge of cultivated land ruined east of the volcano extended at least ten miles, with a width of twenty or thirty miles. Fancy a rich and thickly populated country of vineyards lying under three to six inches of ashes and cinders of the color of chocolate with milk, while above, to the west, the volcano in full activity is distributing to the outer edges of the circle the same fate, and you will get an idea of the desolate impression of the scene, a tragedy colossal and heartrending. Like that of Calabria, it enlists the sympathy of the civilized world. It takes time for such a calamity to be realized.

"Two miles below San Giuseppe we struck cinders which the soldiers were shoveling, making a narrow road for the refugees. Our wagon driver begged off from completing his contract to take us to San Giuseppe. We had not the heart to insist, so the rest of the journey to the railway at Palma, eight miles, was made laboriously on foot for three hours through sliding cinders.

"In many places temporary shelters had been built by the roadside, like children's playhouses. Here women were huddled with their bedding, awaiting the coming of supplies which the army had begun to distribute. The men were largely occupied with shoveling cinders from the stronger roofs and floors into heaps three to six feet deep along the roadside. Many two-wheeled carts loaded with salvage, drawn by donkeys or pushed by peasants, were making their way along, the women with bundles on their heads or carrying poultry.

"In the square of San Giuseppe was an encampment of soldiers, with low tents. Near a destroyed church, in coarse yellow linen shrouds, were the bodies of thirty-three of the persons who there lost their lives. The peasants were sad, but uncomplaining; in fact, for so excitable a people they were wonderfully calm. As evidence of the thrift and self-respect of these, we were not once asked for alms during the afternoon."

 

THE KING AT THE FRONT.

The Italian Government did all it could at the moment to alleviate the horrors of the situation, sending money to be expended in relief work and dispatching high officials of the government to give aid and encouragement by their presence. The King, Victor Emmanuel, and Queen Helene reached the scene of destruction as early as possible and lent their personal assistance to the work of rescue.

Obliged to leave his automobile, which could not move over the cinder-choked road, the King went forward with difficulty on horseback, the animal floundering through four feet of ashes, stumbling into holes, and half blinded by the fall of dust and cinders.

"How did you escape?" he asked a priest whom he met in his journey.

"I put myself in safety," was the reply.

"What do you mean?" asked the King.

"Realizing the danger, I left Nola."

"What!" cried the King, with a flush of anger. "You, a minister of God, were not here to share the danger of your people and administer the last sacraments? You did very wrong and forgot your duty."

Reaching Ottejano, the King did what he could to expedite the work of rescue at that central point of disaster, more than a hundred dead bodies being taken from the ruins in his presence. He stood with set pale face watching the removal of the victims and directing the movement of the workers. During his visit at the front he inspected the temporary camp hospitals, in which the soldiers were caring for the injured and suffering, speaking to the poor victims, giving them what comfort he could, and asking what he could do to relieve their distress. Every request or desire was received with sympathy and orders given to have it fulfilled.

A pitiful scene took place when the King bent over a poor man, whose right leg had been amputated, and asked what he could do to comfort and aid him in his affliction.

"Send me my son, who is serving as a soldier," said the maimed peasant.

The King, visibly affected, clasped the old man's hand and exclaimed:

"My poor fellow! I can do much, but to grant your request would mean breaking the laws, which I must be the first to respect. I would give anything I have were it possible by so doing to send your son to you, but I cannot do so."

While the King was thus engaged at the scenes of desolation, Queen Helene visited the charitable institutions at Naples and inspected the places where the refugees were housed, doing what she could to improve conditions and add to the comfort of the sufferers. The Princess of Schleswig-Holstein, who was in Naples, made an automobile visit to the afflicted towns, but the motor broke down, and she was forced to return on foot, walking a distance of twelve miles through the ashes and displaying a power of endurance that surprised the natives.

 

THE CANOPY OF DUST.

By Friday, April 13th, the eruption was practically at an end. Vesuvius had spent itself in the enormous convulsion of the 7th and 8th and the subsequent minor explosions and had returned to its normal state, ceasing to give any signs of life, except the cloud of smoke which still rose from its crater and spread like a thick curtain over and around the mountain. Looked at from Naples, there was none of the familiar aspects of the volcano, with its output of smoke and ashes by day and fiery gleam by night. Now it lay buried in darkness and obscurity, clothed in a dense pall of smoke. At Rome there was sunshine, but twenty miles south hung a misty veil, and twenty-five miles above Naples a zone of semi-obscurity began, blotting out the sun, whose light trickled through with a sickly glare. Everything was whitened with powdery dust; pretty white villas were daubed and dripping with mud, and people were busy shoveling the ashes from their roofs.

The crowds at the stations resembled millers, their clothes flour covered; the Campania presented the appearance of a Dakota prairie after a blizzard of snow, though everything was gray instead of white. The ashes lay in drifts knee deep. As the volcano was approached semi-night replaced the day, the gloom being so deep that telegraph poles twenty feet away could not be seen. Breathing was difficult, and the smoke made the eyes water. At Naples, however, a favorable wind had cleared the air of smoke, the sun shone brightly, and the versatile people were happy once more. The goggles and eye-screens had disappeared, but the streets were anything but comfortable, for some six thousand men were at work clearing the ashes from the roofs and main streets and piling them in the middle of the narrow streets, making the passage of vehicles very difficult and the sidewalks far from comfortable for foot passengers.

But while brightness and joy reigned at Naples, there were gruesome scenes within the volcanic zone. At Bosco Trecase soldiers carried on the work of exhumation, being able to work only an hour at a time on account of the advanced stage of decomposition of the bodies. Many of these were shapeless, unrecognizable masses of flesh and bones, while others were little disfigured. To lessen the danger of an epidemic the bodies were buried as quickly as possible in quicklime.

On Sunday, the 15th, the searchers at Ottejano were surprised at finding two aged women still alive, after six days' entombment in the ruins. They were among those who had been buried by the falling walls a week before. The rafters of the house had protected them, and a few morsels of food in their pockets aided to keep them alive. At some points there the ashes were ten feet deep. At San Giuseppe bodies of women were found in whose hands were coins and jewels, and one woman held a jewelled rosary. This recalls the results of exploration at Herculaneum and Pompeii, where were similar instances of death overtaking the victims of the volcano while fleeing with their jewels in their hands.

It is interesting to learn that two men stood heroically to their post of duty during the whole scene of the explosion, Professor Matteucci, Director of the Royal Observatory, and his American assistant, Professor Frank A. Perret, of New York. Though the building occupied by them was exposed to the full force of the rain of stones from the burning mountain, they remained undauntedly at their post through that week of terror. On the 14th some of that venturesome fraternity, the newspaper correspondents, reached their eyrie on the highest habitable point on Vesuvius and heard the story of their experiences.

 

THE HEROES OF THE OBSERVATORY.

For several days Professors Matteucci and Perret and their two servants had been cut off from the outside world and bombarded by the volcano, their rations consisting of bread, cheese and dried onions, until on Friday a hardy guide was induced to push through to them with some provisions. During the eruption the Professor had kept at his instruments, taking observations day and night and making calculations in the midst of the inferno. Roughly dressed, he looked like a Western cowboy after a hard ride in a dust storm. The portico where he stood was knee deep in ashes, and from the observatory terrace narrow paths had been cut through the ashes, but as far as the eye could reach an ocean of ashes and twisted rivers were alone visible, with Vesuvius rising grimly in the midst. The great monster was enveloped in a cloak of white, as if buried under a snowstorm, its surface being here and there slit with gulches in which lava ran. At the bottom of one of those gulches lay the wrecked remnants of the peninsular railway, a portion of its twisted cable protruding through the ashes. As the correspondents ascended the mountain they were surprised by the apparition of natives, men wrinkled with age, who emerged from dugouts just below the observatory and offered them milk and eggs, just as if they were ordinary visitors to the volcano. As they descended they heard the sound of a mandolin from one of these dugouts. Evidently Vesuvius had no terrors for these case-hardened veterans.

We have already told the story gleaned by the correspondents from the daring scientists. Matteucci completed his record of boldness on Friday, the 13th, by climbing to a point far above the observatory, at the imminent risk of his life, to observe the conditions then existing. From what he says he believed the end of the disturbance near, though he did not venture to predict. As for the ashes, which a light wind was then blowing in a direction away from Naples, he said: "The ill wind is now blowing good to other places, for ashes are the best fertilizer it is possible to use. It is merely a question just now of having too much of a good thing."

This is a fact so far as the volcanic ash is concerned. An examination of the ashes a few days ago shows that they will prove an active and valuable fertilizer. The fertile slopes of Vesuvius have ever been an allurement to the vine-grower, four crops a year being a temptation no possible danger could drive him from, and as soon as the mountain grows surely peaceful after this eruption, we shall find its farmers risking again the chance of its uncertain temper. But this is not the case with the land covered with lava and cinders. Time for their disintegration is necessary before they can be brought under cultivation, and this is a matter of years. After the great eruption of 1871-72 the land covered with cinders did not bear crops for seven years, and there is no reason that they will do so sooner on the present occasion. So for years to come much of the volcanic soil must remain a barren and desert void. _

Read next: Chapter 16. The Great Lisbon And Calabrian Earthquakes

Read previous: Chapter 14. The Earthquake Wave Felt Round The Earth

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