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.
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