Part 17 (1/2)

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 ma.s.s. 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 ma.s.s 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 ma.s.s of tumult roundness was beautifully accentuated by the full moon, s.h.i.+fting 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 ma.s.s 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 G.o.d'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 crus.h.i.+ng 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 ma.s.sive, 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, undiminis.h.i.+ng 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 coa.r.s.e 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 a.s.sistance 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.