we
get farther on, then you'll see lava more in its raw stage. Very soon we
shall be passing over the top of Herculaneum. The ancient city lies
buried thirty feet below the surface."

"Aren't they ever going to excavate it like they did Pompeii?"

"The trouble is that the modern town of Pugliano is built over the top,
and naturally the owners don't want their houses pulled down, whatever
treasures in the way of Greek or Roman antiquities may lie buried
underneath. Isn't the view of the Bay of Naples beautiful from here?"

"Yes, and the flowers. It's like fairyland."

At Pugliano the party left the train, and after a long and tiresome wait
at the station changed to the light electric railway that was to take
them up Vesuvius. The little carriage resembled a tramcar, and its wide
glass windows afforded excellent views of the scenery _en route_.
Up--up--up they went, gradually getting higher and higher. It was
marvelous how the vegetation altered as they ascended. The cactuses,
olives, almonds, and peach orchards gave way to hillsides covered with
small chestnut, oak, or poplar trees, and the poppies and daisies were
succeeded by broom bushes and clumps of rosemary. They were getting on
to the region of the lava, and all the ground was brown, like newly
turned peat. Men were busy digging terraces in the volcanic earth, to
plant vines, working calmly as if the great cone above them had never
belched forth fire and ashes.

"How _dare_ they live here?" shuddered Peachy, pointing to the tiny
dwellings which had been reared here and there. "When they see all the
ruin round them, aren't they afraid? What makes them go back?"

"The ground is so rich," explained Miss Morley. "Nothing grows vines so
splendidly as volcanic earth. The people get fatalistic, and think it
worth risking their lives to have these fruitful little farms. They say
the mountain may not be angry again for years, and they will take their
chance."

"It's smoking now," said Lorna.

"I suppose it's safe?" asked Delia anxiously.

"Perfectly safe to-day or we shouldn't have been allowed to go up in the
electric railway. Do you see that big building--the observatory? Careful
investigations are made every day of the crater, and the results
telegraphed down to Naples. If there were the slightest hint of danger
the trains would be stopped and tourists turned back."

The journey was ever upwards, over great wastes of rough brown lava,
which looked as if som