called in case the storm should abate, lay down for a little rest and sleep. It was midnight before I was awakened from my dreams. The Italian was tapping me on the shoulder.

"Wake, signore; the snow stopped, you get fine view. You go to crater, you see lava and fire."

It was a starless night, inky black, our hands scarcely visible before our faces, but there was no difficulty in finding the way. The roaring and rumbling of the volcano, and the lurid glare that shot forth every few seconds from the summit, beckoned on far better than any guide. When at last the brink of the crater was reached, its working was visible to perfection.

The thousands who use the simile, "standing over a volcano," can never appreciate its full meaning unless they have actually stood over a volcano as we stood that dark night, looking down into the huge caldron of boiling lava, watching the fiery mass as it seethed and steamed and came hissing through the fissures in the mountain's sides. Until far in the night we watched that terrible sight, and listened to the rumbling and roaring that seemed to come from the very bowels of the earth. The scene, standing at midnight on that volcanic peak, a world of blackness around us, was awe-inspiring. I took no note of time, and was only called to myself by an event that nearly proved my quietus. While gazing into the fiery sea of lava, there was a terrific rumbling, followed by a shower of red-hot stones which flew in every direction, missing us, as it seemed, only by a miracle. The second eruption followed after an interval of less than a minute, but even in that short time we had descended, rolling and leaping, at least three hundred feet down the side of the cone. The situation was big with danger. On the one side was an impenetrable mist; a mountain of fire was on the other. The eruptions continued, and the sky was still illumined by the showers of burning stones, some of which fell dangerously near. My companion was struck on the arm by one of the smaller missiles-perhaps one of the smallestand although not seriously injured, received a very bad burn.

Even when out of reach of the fiery hail our course was by

no means easy. The whole summit of Vesuvius is composed of recent eruptions of lava, much of it scarcely cooled. To pick a way across this at mid-day is no easy matter; at midnight, covered by clouds, the chances of stepping on a place not sufficiently hardened, and of breaking through into some sulphurous pit, are dangerously great. It was not until after an hour's slow and painful walking that we found our way back to the low room and sank exhausted upon the floor.

The Italian government has taken possession of the excavated city of Pompeii. A law recently enacted strictly forbids strangers entering or remaining after sunset. I was anxious to see the ruins by moonlight, and resolved to spend a night in that resurrected city of the Romans, the law to the contrary notwithstanding. The preceding night had been spent on Mount Vesuvius, and early in the morning I arose from my lofty couch and descended the side of the mountain towards Pompeii along the same route that the lava and ashes took eighteen hundred years ago, when the unfortunate city was buried. The earth excavated from Pompeii has been thrown around the city, making a wall twenty or twenty-five feet high. The only entrance is through a gate with a revolving stile, where the visitor pays forty cents admission.

Pompeii is a wonderful place. The old inhabitants, subjects. of the Emperor Titus, are still there-there in glass cases, in the very postures in which they died eighteen centuries ago. In the court-yard of one house is still standing a pedestal bearing a bust of the owner of the house-Cornelius Rufus. It has been there two thousand years, and is as good as new except for a little piece of the nose which has been chipped off. Even with this defective nose one can see what manner of man Cornelius was a rather handsome fellow, with benevolent aspect. I dare say, when he came in in a hurry, he used often to throw his toga or hat over this very bust.

Towards set of sun, worn out with wandering among the curious ruins and relics of the dead past, I sought a place wherein to rest and wait the rising of the moon. In the Tem

ple of Isis still stands the altar where the Pompeiian priests once delivered oracles to the credulous people. The statue head, whence issued the oracles, stands now, as it then stood, on a pedestal, under which the cunning priests had hidden themselves. Into this silent and secret place I crawled, refreshed myself with a luncheon from my knapsack, and lay down to rest. The descent from Vesuvius and the day's sightseeing proved too much for me. I sank into a sleep, not deep, but disturbed by dreams of things long dead and gone. I saw old pagan priests talking through the sculptured head to humbug the ignorant worshippers. I saw the gaping crowd of women and men, with faces of awe and reverence, receiving the lying oracles; then suddenly, as it seemed, a man of grave and reverend aspect, with long, flowing beard and long hair, confronted the deceiving priests, and with commanding gestures ordered them away and overturned the oracle head, which fell with a crash amid the pagans' cries and shouts.

I started up wildly, so vivid was the scene. I found myself in darkness, the sound of rough voices were shouting near by; I could not at first realize where I was.

"Ahimediavolo-lui è qui!" (The d-1, here he is!), shouted the rough voices. Then a man with a lantern poked. his head into the place and threw a sudden light upon me. I was blinded and dazed. The man began talking Italian at me so rapidly that I became still more bewildered. Was I dead and in Hades? The brigandish-looking fellow with the lantern seized me fiercely, jerked me up and out of my hidingplace, and dragged me along to the gate of the city. Once in the open air, my dazed senses cleared and I began to take in the situation. A fierce-looking fellow with a bristling mustache and showy uniform went through my pockets and knapsack, and then I was escorted down the high-road to Portici, a village about seven miles distant, in the direction of Naples. There I was lodged in jail, and the next morning brought before an officer of justice, charged with the heinous crime of sleeping in the dead city of Pompeii. Putting on an innocent

air, I said in my best Italian that my intentions were not felonious, that I had taken nothing, that I had fallen asleep from over-fatigue-Vesuvius, sight-seeing, and all that; and finally, as no purloined relics were found upon me, I was let off with a reprimand, and a warning not to do so again.

I discovered on a second visit that the stile through which the visitor enters Pompeii registers each person passing in. At sunset another stile registers the exits; exits and entrances must tally. On this eventful eve they did not tally, and so the silent streets and houses of the dead were searched with the result described.

CHAPTER IV.

THE CROOKED STREETS AND HANDSOME WOMEN OF CAPRI.

THE little island of Capri is noted for its women, who possess a peculiar kind of beauty. They are as straight as arrows, have regular features, magnificent eyes, perfect teeth, dark, olive complexions, and straight, coal-black hair. Not a few English artists who go to Capri to paint, end by marrying their models and settling on the island for life. An American artist has been there twenty years. He has a wife and grown children who do not speak a word of English. I asked an artist who had been on the island only a few months, whether or not such marriages proved happy.

"As happy as any marriages," was the reply. "The artist comes with the intention of painting a few views and leaving with the summer. But there are so many views, and his model is so lovely, he concludes to finish out the year. By that time he has become enervated by the soft climate; he is no longer the pushing, energetic man of the North. IIis ambition has abated, he is content to paint just enough for a living. Ilis sketches find a ready sale in London, he settles down, marries his model, and forgets, and is forgotten by, the world. There have been a dozen such cases, and will probably be a dozen. more."

"Are you not afraid of drifting into it yourself?"

"I may-who knows? I have been here three months. I already feel myself weakening."

"Why do you stay, then?"

"Well, the views are fine-and the women."

A year afterwards I learned that he had married his model and settled in Capri for life.