shes in an ever increasing
rain; toward them slowly and threateningly crawled the fiery serpents
of the lava streams; and from their homes fled thousands of the
terror-stricken people, frantic with horror and dismay. A number of
populous villages were threatened by the lurid lava streams, the most
endangered being Bosco Trecase, with its 10,000 inhabitants. Toward this
devoted town poured steadily the irresistible flood of molten rock. The
soldiers who had been hurried to the front sought to divert its flow by
digging a wide ditch across its course and throwing up a high bank of
earth, but they worked in vain. The demon of destruction was not to be
robbed of its prey. The liquid stream advanced like a colossal serpent
of fire, turning its head like a crawling snake to the right and left,
but keeping steadily on toward the fated town. The ditch was filled; the
bank gave way; the first house was reached and burst into flames; the
creeping stream of fire pushed on to the next houses in its way; only
then did the despairing people desert their homes and flee for their
lives, carrying with them the little they could snatch of their
treasured possessions.

F. Marion Crawford, the novelist, who was present at this scene, thus
describes the flight of the terrified people:

"I saw men, women and children and infants, whose mothers carried them
at the breast or in their aprons, fleeing in an endless procession.
Dogs, too, and cats were on the carts, and sometimes even chickens, tied
together by the legs, and piles of mattresses and pillows and shapeless
bundles of clothes. All were white with dust. Under the lurid glare I
saw one old woman lying on her back across a cart, ghastly white and,
if not dead already of fear and heat and suffocation, certainly almost
gone. We ourselves could hardly breathe."

It was on Saturday, the 7th, that Bosco Trecase became the prey of the
river of molten rock. During that night and the following day the crisis
of the eruption came. The observatory on the mountain side was occupied
by Professor Matteucci, his assistant, Professor Perret, of New York,
and two domestics, all others having been sent away. Their description
of the scene in which they found themselves is vividly picturesque. At
midnight the situation in the observatory was terrible. The forces
of the earthquake were let loose and the ground rocked so that it
was almost impossible to stand. The roaring of the main crater was
deafenin