as strange was how, in the midst of so great a ruination, the grand palace of Prince Ottaiano remained untouched, standing alone and erect as if in mute contemplation of this immense destruction. To Nola, Sarno, Castellamare, Marigliano, people fled from Ottaiano, and the poorest, finding no shelter, ran about the fields, and over the whole country, as far as possible from the place of the disaster. There must be dead people under these stones. In a house seven persons have been buried, a whole family, and through the door we see the half bust of a man, dead, a poor wretch who must have tried to open it, and escape, just as many did in the catastrophe of Pompei! Beautiful Ottaiano, the finest place in the Vesuvian comunes is, sadly to say, destroyed for four fifth, and what remains will have to be demolished, being quite in a dangerous condition. Poor abandoned, isolated country, helped by nobody, left to its fate for a whole day and a half. But for the duke of Aosta, who went there with his troops, it would have remained in this condition with its dead and wounded for eight days longer. And yet people are returning here and they even dare to go over the road of the Croce. Here comes a family of peasants on an old broken down char-à banc. The poor mother has a child clasped in her arms, she is as pale as death! The father holds another child, four larger ones are laying on some straw, a real human pile, sad and deserted. We tell them not to return to Ottaiano, for their house will surely fall on their heads. But they protest, and declare that they will sleep in the open air, that they want to return among the ruins. The woman is terribly pale, and the children are terrorised. Here is a tall thin old man, coming on foot. Ah! how he weeps, how he weeps! How sad it is to see an old man weeping. We tell him not to venture in Ottaiano, we beg him not to go, and he excitedly exclaims: I want to see, I want to see whether anything has remained of our country, and, he goes in almost stumbling, disappearing into the new Pompei. DEATH Only this formidable name can be given to Ottaiano. From that terrible Saturday night, till the following Sunday when the first threatening signs appeared, the church bells have been ringing madly and everybody has started to pray. The fall of ashes increasing and getting quite menacing, Rev. parson Luigi d'Ambrosio has requested the population to meet in the church of the Oratorio of San Giuseppe. How many were they? Three-hundred? Yes, perhaps three-hundred. The bells continued to ring desperately, as in a frantic appeal, the ashes fell thicker and thicker, down bounded the stones accumulating heavily everywhere, and crushing every thing. All at once, with a tremendous roar, down comes the roof of the church crushing and killing all those who were under it praying. Perhaps hundred or eighty people have escaped, running away mad with terror, and among these, fortunately, the Rev. parson d'Ambrosio has saved his life.