Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1901-09-12
In Sunny Italy.
QUIsIsANA, CAPRI, August 4, 1901.
latter sunset on a balcony.l


Dear FrIe7sdS-I will commence a
letter now which should have been be-
gun before. 1t is hard to leave off
looking at our beautiful surroundings.
The breeze is cool. We dine at eight
which time will soon arrive. | have
just returned from trip to height
about 1000 feet above sea level where
there are extensive ruins of the House
of Tiberias. Five of US rode donkeys.
One of our number had never been on
beast before and clung to the donkey
all the way up and entirely refused to
ride down. There were two women
and three girls who led, beat and
GENERALLY encouraged the donkey. AS
we returned the sun set. The smoke
from Vesuvius rendered it easy to look
at. The view from that height of the
sea, islands, volcano and mountains
generally is most charming. Numer-
Gus sail boats added charm but / did
not look at them as have done before
yesterdays experience. This morning
at four o'clock / looked out from our
balcony and the view in the moonlight
was bewitching. This hotel is indeed
grand. Everything is white and clean.
The wall decorations are of delicate
colors and in good taste. The garden
is a marvel of tropical beauty. There
are oleanders beautiful beyond the
usual, lemon trees with large ripe fruit,
oranges, palms, great geraniums and
heliotropes.
The Pompeii hotel was afflicted with
such plague of flies that no one could
eat with any degree of comfort, and
the place was generally dirty, but we
could easily get along with that for
the wonderful experience of the day.
was greatly moved at the sight of
Vesuvius itself sending forth in the
morning a great column of vapor and
smoke to great height. At noon the
column was very dark, and in the af-
ternoon as we rode away from it, as |
watched it, the. smoke settled sulkily
about its summit. thought of the
great eruptions which have caused so
much destruction and wondered when
the sleeping giant would again rouse
himself. Pompeii itself, only two
thirds excavated as yet, is of course of
great interest even in the few hours
we gave it. The rooms or shops are
most of them small. One house of
considerable pretensions has recently
been uncovered and the garden, statues
etc., cleaned and set up as they were
when the destruction came more than
1900 years ago. The wall decorations
are very bright and the drawing is ex-
ce1lent. There are small pictures of
cocks lighting, birds eating cherries,
deer and dogs, fruits etc. On the gar
den walls are large pictures of wild
animals. In the museum are casts of
people in the form and position in
which death found them. There were
charred cakes, clothing, casts of
wheel etc. We shall see much more
of the same sort in Naples. The mar
row streets of the dead city are paved
with large irregular stones with curb
stone about a foot high. At intervals
in these streets are great stepping
stones with spaces between for the
passage of wheels. The ruts In the
solid stone show how great had been
the travel. AS the books tell, there
are buildings which were ruins and
some which were not completed when
the end came. There are baths and
the inevitable forum. There are great
fields of hemp in which we saw many
people working, stripping. pulling,
laying out to dry, gathering in bum
dies, tying. stacking or burning the
dried stripped off leaves. as the case