Young Knights of the Empire Part 31

I thought: "Hullo, here's a revolution or something going on," and I rushed out on to my balcony.

The street below was empty, but in other streets I could hear people calling to each other and crying out.

Then came more of the awful banging, like claps of thunder, all round.

Then there was suddenly a great blaze of red light up in the sky, and I realised that Vesuvius was breaking out.

It was just like a fountain of fire squirting up, with volumes of smoke and steam above it all lit up with the glow, and round it jagged, white lightning kept blazing and darting about.

Soon the flames were dimmed, the whole outbreak became a dull glare, even the houses round us grew indistinct, and what seemed to be a regular London fog set in.

But it was not a fog; it was a cloud of light dust--the ashes from the volcano, which had begun to fall over Naples.

When daylight came you could no longer see the mountain, although you could hear it rumbling like thunder.

You could scarcely see across the street, so thick was the ash fog.

The fine dust got into one's eyes and nose, and everything, indoors and out, was covered with a thick coating of grit.

At the foot of Vesuvius a great stream of red-hot lava mud slid down the mountain side, straight across fields and roads, and over farms and villages, slowly but steadily pus.h.i.+ng its way, the country people fleeing before it with such of their property as they were able to bundle on to carts or carry away with them.

POMPEII.

But on the whole the people were not so frightened after the first outbreak as one might have expected.

Yet they had every reason to be, because near the mountain stand the ruins of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, which was overwhelmed, not by lava, but by just such a fall of ashes from a great eruption of Vesuvius about thirty years after the death of Christ.

The ashes had fallen lightly at first, but so thickly that in a very short s.p.a.ce of time the whole city was buried under tons of it, and the people were crushed or suffocated in their homes.

You will find the whole story of it in the novel called _The Last Days of Pompeii_, but if you ever go to Pompeii the ruins which have been dug out tell their own story better than any book can do.

You walk through silent streets of beautifully decorated houses, of shops, theatres, and baths; the pavement is scored with the wheelmarks of the chariots, and in some of the houses the skeletons of the inhabitants are still to be seen.

BOY SCOUTS OF NAPLES.

To-day the whole country around the foot of the mountain is thickly populated, and towns and villages stand on the slopes of Vesuvius as if there were no danger of his ever breaking out again.

And Naples itself is a great, flouris.h.i.+ng city with big factories, and a busy seaport where s.h.i.+ps of every nation congregate.

And last, but not least, it has its Boy Scouts.

They are Italian boys, but they dress and work just the same as their British brothers. They have done a lot of camping out, and are all very good at cooking their grub. And also they do a bit of sea scouting in the splendid harbour and bay of Naples.

ON AN ORIENT STEAMs.h.i.+P

OUR FLOATING HOME.

Our s.h.i.+p of twelve thousand tons, R.M.S. _Orsova_, was more like a floating hotel than a sea-going vessel, and the pa.s.sengers living in bright, comfortable cabins with a fine dining saloon and first-rate food, could hardly imagine the work that was going on in other parts of the s.h.i.+p to insure their travelling with such ease and speed and safety.

A tour round the s.h.i.+p, such as we made one day, is full of interest and wonder. The second-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers are housed and fed just as well as those in the first-cla.s.s, and there is accommodation for 230 of them.

In the third-cla.s.s, again, they are wonderfully comfortable in cabins for two or for four people each, with nice dining and sitting-saloons, and a roomy, roofed-in deck where they can enjoy the fresh air in all weathers. There is room for 800 of these, and the cost of the journey from England to Australia is only 17 Pounds, which means board and lodging of the best description for six weeks while doing the journey out.

The crew, of course, live forward, and, including seamen, stokers, engineers, stewards, etc., they number about 300 men. On the navigating staff of officers, quartermasters, and look-out men depends much of our safety at sea.

Then down in the depths of the s.h.i.+p are the engineers and stokers, who make the s.h.i.+p go. Our chief engineer, like all chief engineers, is a Scotsman, and he loves and takes a pride in his engines, and is glad to show them.

In Rudyard Kipling's song of the chief engineer, he describes him as looking upon his engines as almost the work of G.o.d, in their wonderful power and intricate working.

IN THE ENGINE ROOM.

And it is indeed an impressive sight to stand below these great monsters of steel and watch them faithfully and untiringly pounding at their work, all in order, and exactly in agreement with each other, taking no notice of night or day, of storm or calm, but slinging along at all times, doing their duty with an energetic goodwill which makes them seem almost human--almost like gigantic Boy Scouts!

The great steel shaft which the four pistons keep driving round is nearly 100 yards in length, and carries the big bronze screw propeller at its end, which thrusts the s.h.i.+p along. There are two of these, one on each side of the s.h.i.+p, which is therefore called a twin-screw vessel.

There are four cylinders to each shaft, and the same lot of steam is used, pa.s.sing from one cylinder to the other, beginning with the small high-pressure cylinder, which it enters at its highest strength, something like 250 lb. to the square inch, and ending with the big low-pressure cylinder, where the pressure is only about 5 lb.

Then there are numbers of other engines. One for condensing the salt water from the sea and making it into fresh water for the boilers.

This is done by boiling up the salt water so that the watery part of it becomes steam, while the salty part remains behind as salt; the steam, when cooled, becomes fresh water, and is then fit to be used in the boilers to make steam.

THE STOKEHOLD.

Then we go into the stokehold among the mighty boilers. Here are powerful, grimy men at work getting coal out of the coal bunkers, and shovelling it into the furnaces.

It sounds easy to shovel coal on to a fire, but it takes a lot of practice to get the knack of stoking a fire properly, and a lot of strength and skill to throw great shovelfuls quickly and well into the right part of the furnace.

The stokers work in gangs for four hours at a time, under "leading stokers," whose duty it is to see that the proper pressure of steam is kept up in the boilers by the heat of the fires.

Anyone who has travelled on an ocean-going steamer will know the sound which comes up from the interior of the s.h.i.+p every twenty minutes or so, which sounds like a rataplan being hammered by someone for his own amus.e.m.e.nt.

This is in reality the signal which is given by striking iron with a shovel, and can be heard by the men all over the stokehold, telling them to stoke up their various fires.

Besides the main engines there are pumping engines for supplying water to the boilers and to the various parts of the s.h.i.+p. Then there are ice-making machines for keeping the food-storage rooms cold, and electric dynamos for supplying electric light all over the vessel, and for use in the laundry.

THE LAUNDRY.

This is an interesting department. Here all the bed sheets, towels, tablecloths of the s.h.i.+p, and the linen of pa.s.sengers are washed, dried, and ironed by machinery.