Note 6 — Chapter I · VESUVIUS.

Bulwer Lytton's Last Days of Pompeii presents to the reader a graphic picture of the terrible event here referred to:—"The eyes of the crowd followed the gesture of the Egyptian, and beheld with ineffable dismay a vast vapour shooting from the summit of Vesuvius, in the form of a gigantic pine tree; the trunk—blackness, the branches—fire! A fire that shifted and wavered in its hues with every moment—now fiercely luminous, now of a dull and dying red that again blazed terrifically forth with intolerable glare!... Then there arose on high the shrieks of women; the men stared at each other, but were speechless. At that moment they felt the earth shake beneath their feet; the walls of the theatre trembled; and beyond, in the distance, they heard the crash of falling roofs; an instant more and the mountain-cloud seemed to roll towards them, dark and rapid; at the same time it cast forth from its bosom a shower of ashes mixed with vast fragments of burning stone. Over the crushing vines—over the desolate streets—over the amphitheatre itself—far and wide, with many a mighty splash in the agitated sea, fell that awful shower." A visit to the disinterred city will probably produce on the mind a still more lasting and vivid impression of the swift destruction which overtook this city.