It lost its peak in one night, and I was there the night that it happened.
I was sleeping peacefully in my hotel, when I was awakened in the middle of the night by heavy bangings, and it at once occurred to me that the artillery were firing guns in the street below my window.
I thought: "Hullo, here's a revolution or something going on," and I rushed out on to my balcony.
The street below was empty, but in other streets I could hear people calling to each other and crying out.
Then came more of the awful banging, like claps of thunder, all round.
Then there was suddenly a great blaze of red light up in the sky, and
I realised that Vesuvius was breaking out.
It was just like a fountain of fire squirting up, with volumes of smoke and steam above it all lit up with the glow, and round it jagged, white lightning kept blazing and darting about.
Soon the flames were dimmed, the whole outbreak became a dull glare, even the houses round us grew indistinct, and what seemed to be a regular London fog set in.
But it was not a fog; it was a cloud of light dust—the ashes from the volcano, which had begun to fall over Naples.
When daylight came you could no longer see the mountain, although you could hear it rumbling like thunder.
You could scarcely see across the street, so thick was the ash fog. The fine dust got into one's eyes and nose, and everything, indoors and out, was covered with a thick coating of grit.