with carriages and automobiles. One of these is coming down from Boscotrecase. There are friends in it, and the train having stopped, we ask them what is the latest news. "The lava has stopped", they cry, shaking their heads and shoulders as if disappointed. In the train people are getting altogether merry. A big crowd of people coming down, meets at Boscotrecase a still bigger crowd going up, with a confusion of carriages, wagons, automobiles, byciclets, all moving towards that fine country, so richly surrounded, by farms, vines, gardens, and which seems still so calm under the grasp of its terrible enemy. And the people coming down describe with gesticulations, and impressive words, what they have seen not very far off, and they look all excited as though they had witnessed a grand and incomparable spectacle! The crowd moves on, then stands still for some time, for there is no place for it, in the beautiful little town. The peasants of Boscotrecase stand around the tourists, silent and still. Nobody is crying, no sad faces are to be seen, no complaints are to be heard, nobody asks or pretends to ask for anything. A liturgic sound reaches our ears at a cross path off the road, and a general silence is made in the thick crowd. A rough wooden cross appears, and behind it, over the heads of the people, an ancient statue of S. Anne, the protectress of Boscotrecase, the Madonna's mother. S. Anne, the powerful old woman, as these southern people call her, is seen. This statue must be very ancient. It has a thin face, crowned by locks of white hair, the thoughtful face of an old woman bending down on the fresh and young face of a little girl. The statue moving on, waves over the crowd. It was taken out yesterday from the church of the Oratorio, which is near B. quite close to the lava, and it has been left there, on the very extreme spot where the lava was rapidly advancing, in the direction of Boscotrecase. This morning, at ten o'clock, this first lava has stopped ten meters from the statue of S. Anne, while the other branch on the right, stopped half an hour later. Far away in the country, five or six farm houses, abandoned two days before, have been surrounded by it, fortunately they were empty, without even furniture in them. But Boscotrecase is safe, and S. Anne carried in triumphal procession, enters the town. The women sing softly some religious verses while walking behind the statue. There is a certain sadness in their voices. Many kneel down and pray, men lift their hats. The old statue of the thoughtful woman, looking calmly to her daughter, is above the crowd. Foreigners look with interest, and the sceptic, and those who have no faith dare say nothing, for really, the lava has stopped this morning, at a certain distance from S. Anne, and if this fact is due to nature, these people don't care, all they want to know is that they have been saved once more, by the prayers of the Protectress.