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"Vesuvio is better," said he, "but the rascal has badly acted and done much harm to our poor people. Like Herculaneum, our Boscatrecase is covered with lava; like Pompeii our Ottajano is buried in ashes. Let me advise you. To-day go to Sorrento, and there stay for a time, until we can the dust brush from our streets and prepare to welcome you with the comfort more serene.
The air was almost unbearable, the heat intense, and few could long bear the dangers and discomfort of the situation. The greatest depth of ashes encountered was in the vicinity of Ottajano. Here large areas were buried to a depth of several feet. Soldiers had been sent there with military carts, carrying provisions and surgical appliances, with orders to lend their aid in the work of relief.
Immense injury was done to the rich territory of Somma, Ottajano and Bosco by heavy rains, which swept along cinders, broke up the road and bridges, and overturned trees and houses for the space of fifteen days.
In all the neighboring towns buildings were destroyed in great numbers, an early estimate being that fully 5,000 houses had been partly crushed or utterly destroyed. On the Ottajano side of the mountain, where the ashes fell in greatest profusion, all the houses of the villages were damaged, and Ottajano itself was left a wreck, several hundred dead bodies being taken from its ruins.
Ottajano was thus cut off from travel, and a heavy fall of ashes followed the officials in their retreat. At Bosco Trecase the lava had gathered into a lake, already growing solid on top, but a mass of liquid rock beneath.
Well, the great eruption of 1906 is over, and the inhabitants of the Vesuvian communes are once more settling down in their ruined homes, or their damaged farms and gardens. No doubt a new Bosco-Trecase will arise on the shapeless ruins of the old site, for fear of danger seems powerless to deter the outcast population from reoccupying its old haunts. Ottajano will be rebuilt, not for the first time, and its citizens will again trust to luck—and to St Januarius—for protection from the evil fate which has repeatedly overtaken their town. The two Torres, Resina, Portici, and the villages along the shore, have this time contrived to escape the lava streams, and though their buildings have been severely shaken, and even wrecked in many instances, the people will doubtless mend the cracks in their walls and place fresh tiles on the injured roofs. They are wise in their own generation, for the Mountain is not likely to burst forth again for another quarter of a century at least after so violent a fit, salvo complicazioni, of course, as the more cautious Italians themselves say. But another outburst is inevitable; and whose turn to suffer will it be then? Will it be Portici, or either of the Torres? Who knows?—and what dweller under Vesuvius to-day cares at this moment? “Under Vesuvius,” but it is a new Vesuvius, for the tall cone which was so conspicuous a feature of the Bay of Naples has disappeared completely, and the summit of the volcano has been once more reduced to the level of Monte Somma. How many years, we wonder, will be required for the Mountain to raise for itself once more the tall pyre of ashes that it has itself demolished and flung on all sides to the winds? At any rate let us now look for a period of rest, a period of prosperity to recoup the disturbed denizens of these paesi gi
From the observatory, where His Majesty's faithful servant still remains, come telegrams that the great pebbles what we call scoria have ruined Ottajano and San Guiseppe. Perhaps they are overwhelmed. But the beast has vomited; he will feel better now, and ever become more quiet." "I suppose," remarked Mr. Merrick, thoughtfully, "that no one knows exactly what the blamed hill may do next.
On another occasion the King and Queen paid a visit to the afflicted district of the slopes of Monte Somma, where Ottajano and San Giuseppe had been almost buried by the continuous falling of burning material from the crater.
Ottajano, a large town of some 12,000 inhabitants, was the place most seriously injured by this wholly unexpected rain of destruction, for a tempestuous fall of red-hot stones, some of immense size, and a shower of ashes killed hundreds of the terrified and suffocating citizens, and blocked up the streets with smoking debris to a depth of four feet.
Ottajano, a little nearer to the volcano, had been buried in scoria, and nine-tenths of the roofs had fallen in, rendering the dwellings untenable. From here a clear view of Mt. Vesuvius could be obtained. The shape of the mountain had greatly altered and the cone had lost sixty-five feet of its altitude.
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