tbs late Eruption of Mount Vesuvius. 80 
by small portions of gunpowder taking fire, as few in this 
country are without a gun and some little portion of gun- 
powder in their houses. As the church feasts are here usually 
attended with fireworks and crackers, a firework-maker of this 
town had a very great quantity of fireworks ready made for 
an approaching feast, and some gunpowder, all of which had 
been shut up in his house by the lava, a part of which had 
even entered one of the rooms ; yet he actually saved all his 
fireworks and gunpowder some days after, by carrying them 
safely over the hot lava. I should not have been so much at 
my ease had I known of this gunpowder, and of several other 
barrels that were at the same time in the cellar of another 
house, inclosed by the lava, and which were afterwards brought 
off on women's heads, little thinking of their danger, over the 
scorias of the lava, that was r^d-hot underneath: The heat in 
the streets of the town, at this time, was so great as to raise the 
quicksilver of my thermometer to very near ico degrees, and 
close to the hot lava it rose much higher ; but what drove me 
from this melancholy spot was, that one of the robbers with a 
great pig on his shoulders, pursued by the proprietor with a 
long gun pointed at him, kept dodging round me to save him- 
self ; I bid him throw down the pig and run, which he did ; 
and the proprietor, satisfied with having recovered his loss, ac- 
quainted me with my danger, by telling me that there were 
now thieves in every house that was left standing. I thought it 
therefore high time to retire, both for my own safety, and that 
I might endeavour to procure from Naples some protection for 
the doubly unfortunate sufferers of this unhappy town. Ac- 
cordingly I returned to Naples in my boat, and immediately 
acquainted this government with what I had just seen myself ; 
mdccxcv. N 
