Just standing on the
threshold of eternity, nothing but God was my pleasure, and the nearer I
approached, I only loved him the more. After some time, however, finding
that I remained unhurt amidst the general confusion, I resolved to
venture for safety, and running as fast as I could, reached the shore,
but almost terrified out of my reason. I soon found the boat in which I
had landed, and my companions also, whose terrors were even greater than
mine. Our meeting was not of that kind where every one is desirous of
telling his own happy escape; it was all silence, and a gloomy dread of
impending terrors.
"Leaving this seat of desolation, we prosecuted our voyage along the
coast, and the next day came to Rosetta, where we landed, although the
earth still continued in violent agitation. But we were scarcely arrived
at our inn, when we were once more obliged to return to the boat, and in
about half an hour, we saw the greatest part of the town, and the inn at
which we had set up, dashed to the ground, and burying all its
inhabitants beneath its ruins.
"In this manner proceeding onwards in our little vessel, finding no
safety on land, and yet, from the smallness of our boat, having but a
very dangerous continuance at sea, we at length landed at Lopizium, a
castle midway between Tropoea and Euphemia, the city to which, as I said
before, we were bound. Here, wherever I turned my eyes, nothing but
scenes of ruin and horror appeared; towns and castles levelled to the
ground: Strombolo, though at sixty miles distance, belching forth flames
in an unusual manner, and with a noise which I could distinctly hear.
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