Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857 Vol 2.djvu/94

Rh to the Adriatic, has a great traffic, and current of country travellers. For their temporary accommodation, the Locanda being nearly wholly destroyed, the small theatre had been applied as a lodging, and of this, I expected at first to become an inmate. Nothing could be conceived more grotesque, than the scene of the interior of the house, from the parterre, all the tiers of boxes, being converted into sleeping cribs for the time being; but the cold was intense, from absence of any means of warmth, and the whole of the house lying open and fallen, from the curtain outwards to the back of the stage; so that I gladly availed myself of a prompt visit from the police, on our arrival, to get an escort to guide us to the Locanda della Corona di Ferro, where, although to a great extent in ruins, they had begun to restore, and gave me a tolerable "camera." It froze hard all night, and melting snow lay six inches deep in the streets in the morning, and all the surrounding ridges were white-topped.

Potenza lies high, and has a bleak and cold climate, in winter at least. At 8·30 a.m., Naples mean time (22nd February), the barometer at the Locanda first-floor window, reads 27m 21", thermo., 31° Fahr., and the reduced level is 2581·9 feet. The mean level of the summit of the ridge upon which the town stands is about 2550 feet above the sea. This ridge, however, does not rise more than 400 feet above the streams, the Aritello and Vasento, that run at its opposite bases, and unwater the wide-spread sweeping basins that surround it. We have passed the great Apennine crest, between Tito and here, and the watershed, is now all towards the Adriatic, the Vasento that rises here (at Vignola), reaching the sea a great river.