Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857 Vol 2.djvu/172

Rh more, the proof of this was given in the arrival on his mule, wet and exhausted, of II Padre, Vincencio Barra di Melfi, who had been endeavouring to force his way from an early hour of the morning, going towards Melfi. He was engaged, as a sort of rural dean, in an ecclesiastical inspection of the injury done to church edifices in this province; and I obtained from him much information of a valuable character, during the hour that still elapsed before we could start, as to the effects of the shock, in the districts of Bari, the Capitanata's, and the north and east of the Tierra di Lavoro, and Molise.

The scene of snow and desolation at the top of the ridge, where I paid off my wild band of excavators, was worthy the pencil of a Carravaggio, I took on, for two or two and a half miles down the slope towards Bella, ten or twelve men, and fortunately, for we had there to cut through a short abrupt drift, that was forming across the road to a depth of more than 18 feet. I found we had in all, wrought a path of about a mile and a half long, upon an average two and a half feet deep, above the trodden snow beneath; in many places three to four feet deep, and for about 300 yards, a continuous drift that measured 8 feet 6 inches above the hard snow below.

Had it not been for the fact, that owing to some peculiar set of the wind at this season, or time, due probably to the eddies of the smaller valleys or great gorges, the snow is swept off the highest part of the pass, as fast as it falls, and drifted away down the slopes to the westward, (as the muleteers assured me before we began was always found to be the case,) the attempt to get through six miles of deep snow would have been hopeless.