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It lost its peak in one night, and I was there the night that it
happened.
I was sleeping peacefully in my hotel, when I was awakened in the
middle of the night by heavy bangings, and it at once occurred to me
that the artillery were firing guns in the street below my window.
I thought: "Hullo, here's a revolution or something going on," and I
rushed out on to my balcony.
The street below was empty, but in other streets I could hear people
calling to each other and crying out.
Then came more of the awful banging, like claps of thunder, all round.
Then there was suddenly a great blaze of red light up in the sky, and
I realised that Vesuvius was breaking out.
It was just like a fountain of fire squirting up, with volumes of
smoke and steam above it all lit up with the glow, and round it
jagged, white lightning kept blazing and darting about.
Soon the flames were dimmed, the whole outbreak became a dull glare,
even the houses round us grew indistinct, and what seemed to be a
regular London fog set in.
But it was not a fog; it was a cloud of light dust--the ashes from the
volcano, which had begun to fall over Naples.
When daylight came you could no longer see the mountain, although you
could hear it rumbling like thunder.
You could scarcely see across the street, so thick was the ash fog.
The fine dust got into one's eyes and nose, and everything, indoors
and out, was covered with a thick coating of grit.
At the foot of Vesuvius a great stream of red-hot lava mud slid down
the mountain side, straight across fields and roads, and over farms
and villages, slowly but steadily pushing its way, the country people
fleeing before it with such of their property as they were able to
bundle on to carts or carry away with them.
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