THE YELLOW RAIN.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 7 May 1901, Page 3

THE YELLOW RAIN.

Recent Curious Storm in Italy

By Clarence Andrews,

As in a sandstorm in the Arabian desert an atmosphere of yellow ochre enveloped Naples on March'loth. "What does it mean?" everyone inquired. "Is it a Kamsin or a Simoom; an aurora borealis or an upheaval of Vesuvius ?". Sunday dawned under a leaden mantle, which suffocated streets and houses, and covered every visible portion of the heavens, Slowly and implacably it descended heavier and heaiver, as if to crush the city beneath it. The air was difficult to breathe, and as tho hours passed one felt a singular uneasiness and oppression. When later the mantle of lead assumed a pea-soup green, heads became heavy, pulses slowed, and lips were parched. In the bay Capri and the hilly outlines of the shore, with distant Vesuvius, disappeared. It was even impossible to distinguish the nearer summits of San Martino and Capo del Monte. The sea itself assumed a livid hue, and dashed in curling waves against rocks and jetties with menacing anger. Waiting in Fear. As the hot " Sirocco " threw over land and sea its sickening cloud those who feared only a heavy shower, perhaps of hail, recalled the warnings which foretold the doom of Pompeii and the fertile Campania. At mid-day the blood in one's veins seemed to turn to fire. The heat was unbearable in house and street, and tlic churches became more than usually crowded with timorous people anxious to consult the saints, the priests, and each other.

San Gennaro was, of course, invoked. Santa Barbara supplicated, and other saints likewise tormented and apostrophised. Binoculars and telescopes were bracketed from every balcony and roof which faces Vesuvius, in expectation of an erruption of flames and rocks, accompanied by subterranean tremblings. However, the cloud mantle did not come from the "mouth of hell," as the crater is known here. It was carried silently across the sea from the desert sands of Africa, and early in the afternoon the dust descended encased in water—like a shower of cayenne pepper, leaving rusty spots on holiday attire which not even amonia can scrub out—and penetrating every nook and cranny of the bouses. The atmosphere changed from chrome to orange, and again to the well-known tint of a London fog. The Heavy Breakers. Although at first there was a dead calm the waves were higher than is usual in stormy weather, and broke in great crests over the sea wall along the Via Carracciolo, spraying far out into the roadway, and damaging still more the dilapidated barrier, from which it tore huge slabs of stone. In the calm there was. that peculiar vibration in the air as if " Nature was holdkg her breath." Then, suddenly, from all quarters, a demon wind arose, shrieking like a fiend from the surrounding mountains. Trees bent and moaned as if in pain, and eddies of dust whirled blindly in mimic maelstroms. Again, silence ! ' Nature recuperating for another mad outburst 1

Next day the sea was calm and placid. For out in the sunshine the fishermen were busy casting their nets, while Vesuvius, with her snowy plume of smoke, gazed in Bullen apathy through the yellow sand streaks on the window panes, and a light powder of silica covering trees and houses remained as a reminder that the storm was passed.