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.
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