Union County courier. [volume] (Elk Point, Union County, D.T. [S.D.]) 187?-1913, 1897-08-05
LETTER FROM e. G. ERICSSON.
From New York to Ma1mo-A Jaunt Over
the Continent The Ocean Trip The
Ascent Of Vesuvius-Thc New and the
Old In Rome-Milan, Lucerne and Col
o9ne-C Crops, Customs and Character.

| istics.
| GoTHESBURG, Sweden, july 9, 1897.
Mr.. EDITOR:
owe The COURIER an apOl-
ogy for not having sooner writ
ten, but sightseeing is rather pleas.
anter than letter. writing.
| We left New York on May Sth on
the Kaiser Wilhelm and had very
pleasant voyage, having hard gale
only one day, which made quite a few
pay tribute to Old Neptune, but fortu-
nately for us we escaped any sea sick
ness. On the sixth day out we steam
ed for half day through the Azores,
and on the evening of the ninth day we
reached Gibraltar, where stop of four
hours was made and we improved the
opportunity to take stroll through
the town. The population seemed to
be mixture of Spaniards, Moors,
Arabs and British, with the Queens
soldiers in the large majority. Mill
tary discipline prevails and permit is
required to enter the town, and to stay
over week a license must be secured.
We reached Naples the evening OF
May goth and after passing the custom
house landed in the most beautiful city
imaginable, so far as location goes, but
the tilthiest we have ever seen, and in
that respect it is said to be one of the
worst in the world. We stopped here
four days, visiting the blue grotto on
the island OF Capri, the buried city of
Pompeii, and Mount Vesuvius. Pom
peii is now about one-half excavated,
and the portion now laid bare is about
as large as Elk Point. Boys Is to q
years old do the wheeling and digging,
and are paid 4S confines, a little over
8 cents per day.
We made the ascent of Vesuvius
mostly on horse back, a zig-zag road
having been constructed to the foot OF
the cone. There we left our horses
and with one Italian pulling and one
pushing we worked our way among the
lava stones to the summit. This is
quite level and seemed to cover about
l6O acres. The crater is about 1000
feet across and probably twice as deep.
We picked our way through the soft
sulphur with which the top is covered
and looked down that awful abyss.
Smoke and steam are continually as
cending, land the deep rumbling and roar
vrif la Ia ipr r<>ft he, do
us feel that there were safer places in
which to linger About every half
minute we would see dense bursts of
smoke and steam come out of the three
frey holes in the bottom of the crater
and see masses of red-hot matter
thrown up hundreds of feet in the air,
only to fall back, while the noise at
such times was like the explosion OF
thousands of great rockets. Only the
light ashes hoated up to the mouth of
the crater. On one side of the cone is
a assure, through which the lava was
pouring and the red stream of molten
matter Was visible at night from
Naples.
We stopped at Rome week visiting
the great churches, the famous ruins
of antiquity and the catacombs. Space
does not permit any description fur
Their than to say that after visiting the
immense ruins of the Colosseum, the
baths of Caracalla, the Roman forum
and the various temples have great
er respect and better idea of the ad-
vancement and civilization of ancient
Rome than any reading ever gave me.
; And it seems strange that the world
should have sunk back into the ignor-
ance and squalor of the middle ages,
after having previously reached such q
state as is here shown.
We stopped at a pension or hotel
kept by Swiss Sisters, and there met
Bishop Zardetti, now of Bucharest, but
who formerly was the Catholic Bishop
of Dakota, preceding Bishop Marty.
Through the kindness of the sisters,
; we secured tickets Of admission to the
canonization OF ceremonies in St.
Peters on May 9th, when two Ital-
ians, who lived in the sixteenth CEN
fury, Pietro Fournier and Antonio
Zaccaria, were made saints of the Cath
Ollie church. Church dignitaries and
members from all over the world had
come to Rome to take part in the cele-
bration, which was the greatest reli-
gious display in Rome for thirty years.
Over 100000 applications were made
for tickets, and although these were
free, spectators were selling them at
i. from S. TO 800 each. We reached the
Piazza, or great square of ST. Peters
about $40 a. m. and found thousands OF
Italian soldiers in line around the Vati-
can and the church, keeping the dense
crowds back. After struggling in the
jam for an hour we finally got into the