are lost,” I said to myself trembling all over. Following the command of our guides we fell flat on our faces, at once. All this happened in the space of a second. A smell of burning wool spread around us. It was my dress which had caught fire. Next moment we got up hurriedly and fled in terror to the other end of the cone, as the direction these rivulets of liquid fire take, depends entirely on the wind. By some miracle nobody was hurt. We have had evidently a very narrow escape of our lives. We were now on our way back to the Funicular Railway. Oh! that descent! We slid down as on skates and reached the Funicular Station in shoes almost entirely without soles. The next day we went to visit the “Certosa,” an ancient grey abbey perched on a high rock, a veritable eagle’s nest. Only six monks are left now in the monastery, to make the famous “Certosa liqueur.” They gather the herbs in the mountains and keep the recipe of their liqueur as a great secret. The convent is now converted into a Museum. Among other curiosities we were shown a shallop in which Charles the Tenth had landed in Spain. Looking out from the terrace the whole city of Naples lay revealed; only the distant splashing of the sea below was heard. A terrible calamity has befallen the Island of Ischia. The little town of Casamicciola, destroyed by a recent tremendous earthquake, is nothing but a heap of deplorable ruins. Through the awful cataclysm the inhabitants are deprived of home and bread. In pursuit of strong sensations we wanted to visit these ruins and embarked on a small steamer which plied from the Bay of Naples to Ischia. It takes only two hours to cross. There was not a breath of air and the sea looked like a polished mirror. Whilst we gazed at the frolics of the dolphins from deck, we passed a man-of-war that had cast anchor in the Bay, and did not remark that it was a Russian cruiser. A young chap who sold photographs on board, offered to show us the ruins of Casamicciola. He could murder enough French to be our interpreter and we accepted his offer. He told us that he had lost both his parents and all his belongings in the recent earthquake; the only object he had found amongst the ruins was his watch. The poor boy had remained several hours unconscious under the ruins and was just out of hospital. On approaching Ischia, we stopped before what had formerly been Casamicciola, a desolate black desert now. The earthquake had in a few moments changed the prosperous little town into a ruin. Hundreds and hundreds of homes had entirely gone. Many people were buried beneath the fallen houses. About two hundred corpses remained under the ruins and a terrible smell came forth. In fear of infection the inhabitants are forbidden to dig out the corpses. Another slight earthquake took place the other day: a rock tumbled down, destroying the remaining houses, and large crevices have been formed in the mountains all around. The whole population is in terrible distress.