Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1906-05-01
CAvA DEL PIRRENI, April s, 1906.

CAvA DEL PIRRENI, April S, 1906
EDITOR PmoT:-
LII not given to many to see such a
marvellous sight as we witnessed yester-
day and last night We came out to
Pompeii from Naples to see the city
that was buried by Vesuvius so many
years ago. For two days and nights,
ashes from the volcano had been falling
in Naples, and when we left there we
had to close the windows of our com
partment to keep them from binding
us. All afternoon, as we wandered
about the ruins, we were constantly
calling each others attention to the vol
cano which exhibited every sign OF
intense activity, roaring and belching
forth clouds of smoke and cinders, roll
ing upward in thick coils that, alto.
gether, suggested the pine tree of which
Pliny wrote when describing the erup-
ton that resulted in the destruction OF
Hero alaneum and Pompeii. Occasion
ally deep roar shook the mountain
ard now and then the mounting flame
could be seen through the dense smoke.
But 1t was not until one of the guides
told US that a stream of lava, bursting
from the side of the mountain, far below
the cone, had destroyed three small
villages before four o'clock that morn
ing, that we realized the intense serious
ness of the eruption. After dinner,
however, (which we had at the Hotel
Suisse in Pompeii, we decided to take a
carriage and drive out to the mountain
to see where the stream of lava had
descended to the plain below. We
drove to small village about a mile
from the end of the stream, but here
the crowd was so dense we had to leave
our carriage and walk the rest of the
way. 1t was a motley crowd, men,
women and children. tourists, Italian
gentle folks, peasants and beggars mot
begging, strange to say.) Ali were
moving with the common impulse
toward the mountain which was now
sending up great streams of flame,
gigantic skyrockets. Though the simile
seems puerile, it describes as well as
| can, however, the way in which great
streams of red hot stones and cinders
were sent up to a tremendous height
and then burst, like rocket, falling in
showers until in a short time all the
side of the cone visible to US was
covered with a glowing mass. The
rumblings became more sharp and
violent, sounding as if a fleet were
bombarding Naples. We reached the
lava some distance outside the town,
and as | stood and looked at the black
stream, with the white-hot molten mass
glowing beneath the upper layer, which
had cooled, little Italian boy, who
had acted as our guide, told us in
picturesque and very good Italian that
IN the early morning, while the lava
stream rolled down the mountain side,
the women of the little town, Rosca
Ire Cava, t'Word of the Three Houses, y
1t was translated) knelt before the on
coming torrent and prayed the Madonna
and Saints to save them and their
homes. 1t stopped well short of the
town, but they had already erected
barricades of stone and earth to pre-
vent another stream from overwhelm-
ing them, if they could. Somehow the
thought of those women on their knees
before that resistless white-hot river,
impressed me with the pity and the
dispair and the fearfulness of what |
saw afterwards, as nothing else could
have done.
We decided to drive from Pompeii to
Cava, where we are spending some
time. 1t took us two hours or more
and all that time we were in full view
of that fearful sight. For it grew more
wonderful, more terrible and more