A nice white little village, located by a black row of stone girdling it with mourning after having wrapped it with destruction, and you will then understand what must have been the panic and terror of yesterday, and what is to day the serious loss of this place which is now hardly spoken of, and which to-morrow will be probably forgotten: of Boscotrecase prisoner of fire, like Brunhilde of the Walkyrian story and which will never be waked up again from her sleep resembling death. * * * * * If you want to go to Boscotrecase, from the cemetery of Torre Annunziata, you may, avoiding to go down as far as Scafati, ascend directly the course of the lava and coasting as I have done, three steps further you see the line of the Circumvesuviana cut for several meters by the lava, which has run over the rails, falling on the ground underneath, rails being raised in that place. Let us go through the fields, the front of the lava is quite wide and one must take a long turn. All around the black sleeping mass, the country has remained untouched, the vines are in bloom and young green twigs hang from them. One step from the last scories, advanced sentinels of death, little field daisies, all gold, small stars wreathing the head of the monster, are waving at the soft, light blowing breeze, while big bloody poppies like large stains of blood, fill the ground all around. Half way up over the low walls of the farms, a little house appears at once before you. It is the first one which has been surrounded by the lava. In fact the walls peep out of the crags under the rocks where they are buried. All is in its place, not a shingle is missing from the roof, not a pane from the windows. Only the inexorable lava closes it all around. And I have like the painful sensation of witnessing the agony of a healthy and good creature, hugged in the arms of a giant who is slowly suffocating it. Still more houses are to be seen farther on; but some of them are in ruin, the lava has leant against the walls, has pressed, has broken some pillars and has opened big cracks in the walls. From a close window, I suddenly perceive, a thin line of grayish smoke. The work of the hidden fire is only beginning. The house is burning little by little. The shutters, the doors, all wooden things in contact with the lava, are beginning to burn, then it will be the turn of the beams, of the sustaining arches and the walls; every thing will be consumed to ashes, and only some ruins will remain. How long will it take? Who knows? The work of fire is silent and tenacious like a human vengeance. After an hour's march we abandon the poor, deserted dwellings, irremessibly condemned, vowed to death, yonder in the great sea of lava, and we get back in the main road, full of dust, leading to Boscotrecase. AT BOSCOTRECASE Entering the little town one receives the impression that nothing abnormal has happened there.