VOLCANIC ERUPTION. 



35 



grey darkness ; and some of the men, and 

 nearly all the women hurried to the churches, 

 their forms wrapped up, and very dimly dis- 

 cerned through the deep gloom, and their 

 footsteps, noiseless on the bed of ashes, re- 

 called to the imagination Virgil's description 

 of the shades ; and they went and prostrated 

 themselves at the feet of their saints, and 

 beating their bosoms, vowed candles and offer- 

 ings for relief ; but the saints were made of 

 wood or stone, and heard them not ; and 

 another sun went down on their agony, for 

 agony it was. 



During the day at intervals, several shocks 

 of earthquake were felt, and frequently the 

 distant thunder, or a noise very like it, was 

 heard. The ashes had accumulated to some 

 depth ; the fall was as great, if not greater, 

 than ever ; the darkness as grey by day and 

 as black by night ; no termination of it even 

 to be prophecied, and a tomb growing up 

 around man and beast ; flight was useless ; 

 thousands of cattle had already perished in 

 the woods and savannahs, though at that 

 moment the fact was not then known ; and 

 persons seemed more inclined to meet any 

 fate reserved for them in the town, than to 

 fly to what they knew not in solitude. And 



