So they all lived on, merrily and happily enough, till the year A.D. 79. At that time there was stationed in the Bay of Naples a Roman admiral, called Pliny, who was also a very studious and learned man, and author of a famous old book on natural history. He was staying on shore with his sister; and as he sat in his study, she called him out to see a strange cloud which had been hanging for some time over the top of Mount Vesuvius. It was in shape just like a pine tree; not, of course, like the pines which grow in this country, but like an Italian stone pine, with a long straight stem and a flat parasol-shaped top.
Sometimes it was blackish, sometimes spotted; and the good Admiral Pliny, who was always curious about natural science, ordered his rowboat and went away across the bay to see what it could be. Earthquake shocks had been very common for the last few days, but I do not suppose that Pliny thought that the earthquakes and the cloud had anything to do with each other. However, he soon found out that they had; and to his cost. When he was near the opposite shore, some of the sailors met him and begged him to turn back. Cinders and pumice stones were falling down from the sky, and flames were breaking out of the mountain above. But Pliny would go on: he said that if people were in danger it was his duty to help them; and that he must see this strange cloud, and note down the different shapes into which it changed.
But the hot ashes fell faster and faster; the sea ebbed out suddenly, and almost left them on the beach; and Pliny turned away towards a place called Stabiæ, to the house of an old friend who was just going to escape in a boat. Brave Pliny told him not to be afraid; ordered his bath like a true Roman gentleman, and then went in to dinner with a cheerful face. Flames came down from the mountain, nearer and nearer as the night drew on; but Pliny persuaded his friend that they were only fires in some villages from which the peasants had fled; and then went to bed and slept soundly.
However, in the middle of the night, they found the courtyard being fast filled with cinders, and if they had not awakened the Admiral in time, he would never have been able to get out of the house.
The earthquake shocks grew stronger and fiercer, till the house was ready to fall; and Pliny and his
Mount Vesuvius during an Eruption.