MEMOIR OF PLINY. 
41 
love for justice — his respect for virtue — his detesta- 
tion of cruelty and baseness, of which he had seen 
such terrible examples, — and his contempt for that 
abated, and to-day the alarmed inhabitants of Ottajano 
and Mauro begin to breathe a little freely. The injury 
done to houses and land, about 300 moggie, is reckoned at 
L. 300,000. It is impossible to give you a complete idea of 
this sublime and terrific natural spectacle. As it was not 
attended by any danger to approach the lava during the 
last three evenings, not only the number of gentlefolks who 
went to see the threatened villages was great, including all 
that was distinguished of natives and foreigners in Naples, 
Sorrento, and Castcllmare, but thousands of the peasants 
and citizens, with their wives and children, from all the 
neighbourhood, came and saw, and wondered at the pro- 
gress of the destruction. What a contrast between the ter- 
ror of the despairing inhabitants, who in a moment saw their 
whole property — the only hope in future for their at least 
painful life — irrecoverably lost ; and the wild and almost 
mocking, singing, and laughing, of the jackass drivers, and 
the rude merriment of some soldiers, who, not contented 
with the injury done by the eruption, proceeded with Van- 
dal rage to destroy what Vesuvius had spared. 
“ Sept. 6. — >The state of Vesuvius is not yet peaceful 
enough. Every day huge pillars of smoke arise from the 
middle of the crater, which generally disperse in light 
showers of ashes, and often are accompanied by very loud 
reports. The well known cicerone of Vesuvius, Salvatore, 
is of opinion that another eruption may be expected ; and 
persons are afraid that it will take place in the middle of 
the mountain, and direct the lava to%yards Portici. The 
lava, the destructive flow of which only stopped on the 1st, 
pressed forward to about a mile from Scafati, a small town 
on the river Samo, and has almost cut olf the communica- 
tion between Nola and Castellmare, having stopped only a 
few paces from the high road. Three hundred families 
have lost their homes and their vineyards, which promised 
