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.
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