They draw slowly away, sitting in groups on the ground or on the accumulated ashes, forming thus a strange and never to be forgotten picture. Their clothes are gray with ashes and dust, whilst their babies with smutty faces and hair, lay quietly in their arms, watching eagerly around. They wait there in silence. Perhaps better hours will come. UNDER THE NATIVE ROOF. In the long, hard fatiguing pilgrimage where every step costs untold pain, where every look sees a precipice, a young peasant accompanies us as a guide. One reads trouble and misery in his dark eyes, his voice is low and dragging, almost complaining. Are you from Ottaiano, I ask him, while going up the steep road. --Yes, I and my family are from that place. --Did you run away from there in that terrible night? --Yes, we fled just about dawn when the fall of stones was at its worst. --And how long did this last? --Fully twenty four hours madam, from ten o'clock on Saturday night, till ten o'clock on Palm Sunday. A whole day, yes, a whole day. He doesn't lie nor exaggerate. If he did, how could all this ruin be around us? --Did your house fall down? I inquire. --Yes, he answers sadly. There it stands on that height yonder. Look at it! look at it! All I possessed is buried there! My bed, my poor furniture, all. Tears gather in his eyes. At least have you saved your family? --Yes, he murmurs, they are at Sarno. But I have lost all. I was supporting them, and have lost my wagon and my two mules, for I was a driver. --Are they buried? --The wagon can be seen under the stones; and as he speaks he seems to take heart all at once, It can be seen! perhaps I shall be able to drag it out. But the mules! The mules are dead. How shall I manage? A deep sigh heaves his broad chest. --And you have come back here, I ask him? Many of you have come back? --I have come back. This is my country. I have come to try to save my wagon and those poor animals, Nothing, nothing! --Will you remain here? --I shall! Where could I go? This is my country. I will also make my family return from Sarno. If you knew how many have returned! --How many? How many? --At least three thousand. Many have come back the following day. You see, we could not stay away. --And where do they live? --Nearly all sleep out in the fields under straw sheds, and the others in the few houses that remain standing now. --They are building cabins, and little by little you will see every body, coming back to their own country. --Was this place, fine? I ask him quite touched. --The finest of all, and our country is fine! And he utters these words enthusiastically, but again he looks down sighing, and is silent. AMONG THE RUINS. Of course the farther we get from the station, from Municipio square, the fewer people we see, and the more we advance towards Scudieri's house, Ateneo Chierchia, and the feudal palace of Ottaiano, where the ruins take a more imposing and solemn aspect, the greater the solitude.