and lives were
certainly in danger from the devastating streams of lava. It was with a
sigh and a smile that we learned how the good people of Portici attributed
their escape from the fate of Bosco-Trecase to the direct interposition of
a wonder-working Madonna enshrined in one of their own churches. For some
days the town had been threatened, so that many were convinced of its
impending doom, when happily at the last moment the expected fate was
averted, as though by a miracle. And miracle it truly was in the eyes of
the people of Portici, when it was observed that the snow-white hands of
their popular Madonna had turned black in some mysterious manner during
the night hours. What could be a simpler or easier deduction from this
circumstance, than that Our Lady's Effigy, taking pity on its affrighted
suppliants, had with its own hands pushed back the advancing mass of lava,
and thus saved the town! Great was the joy, and equally great the
gratitude, displayed by these poor souls at Portici, who at once organised
a triumphal procession in honour of their prescient patroness "delle mani
nere." Does not such an incident, we ask, lend a touch of picturesque
medievalism to a modern scene of horror and darkness, exhibiting to us, as
it does, the traits of a simple touching faith and of genuine human
thankfulness?

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