At Torre Annunziata, in a desperate moment, when the lava was almost touching the cemetery, I bent over the opening of a wooden fence which closed a large field on which the lava was advancing, and before this great black and red monster, the field seemed deserted! Only a soldier, a simple soldier was there in a solitary corner. There he stood before the lava advancing near him: he was there alone, perhaps to keep the little fence from being broken down by the frivolous curiosity of the crowd. Here in the barracks the soldiers are sheltering those who are running away, giving them food and courage, and with the same courage and heart, they gather to them all lost children. Oh unknown heroes! oh our own heroic brothers! oh! our heroic own sons, here through you, the honor of humanity is saved. For you we are still left to believe that the most admirable virtues can still live in the heart of men. Oh you heroes before life and death, heroes for valor and for goodness, you great heroes from your young leader to the generals and officers, all of you martyrs and heroes, our own salvation, our own strength, our own glory, our soldiers! 11th April 1906. LET US SPEAK TO THE PEOPLE Very Eminent Prisco, archbishop of Naples, sitting on the mystic throne where the great pious soul of Sisto Riario Sforza shone of deepest faith, where the simple and kind soul of Guglielmo Sanfelice shone with the tenderest religious charity, you, whose loving heart as a minister is certainly aching, you who have already spoken to the people and to the clergy in the name of Christ, you who have already helped and promoted help, look very Eminent Prisco, our archbishop of Naples, look at the despair of the people of Naples. The calamity which strikes us all, more or less, is indeed tremendous! But its aspect above all has something so dreadfully threatening, to fill even the coldest and most courageous, with a sense of apprehension and awe. These immense clouds now gray, now livid, now reddish now black, towering over our heads, stretching from Vesuvius till here, covering the sea, the city, hiding the sun, darkening the air, these clouds, which will later fall in a long and heavy shower of cinders, these clouds which science and experience declares perfectly innocent it is true, and which enfold the whole city, oppressing it, and giving it such gloomy look, are terrifying, and frightening every body. In the first days of the disaster, Neapolitans have maintained their usual calm and serenity, but now terror has stricken the most, and has almost grown into a frenzy. We know, of course, that all these phenomena are more terrible in their appearance than in their substance, but the lower classes don't know this, and don't wish to know it, and their fear assumes now a furious dangerous character.