After much pushing, crowding, shouting, and gesticulation on the part of both the public and officials, the train at last started and pursued its jolting and jerky way.

It ran first through the poorer district of Naples, where dilapidated houses, whose faded walls showed traces of former gay pink, blue, or yellow color-wash, stood in the midst of vegetable gardens; then, the slums left behind, the line passed a long way among vineyards and orchards of almond, peach, and cherry that were just bursting into glorious lacy blossom.

The railway banks were gay with the flowers which March scatters in Southern Italy, red poppies, orange marigolds, lupins, campanulas, purple snapdragons, and wild mignonette, growing anywhere among stones and rocks, with the luxuriance that in northern countries is reserved for June.
At Torre Annunziata the party from the Villa Camellia all crowded to the carriage window, for Miss Morley had something to point out to them.
"We're passing over the lava formed by the great eruption in 1906.

The whole of the railway line and ever so many houses were buried then.
Don't you see bits of them peeping out over there ?" "Why, yes, it looks like cinders," commented Lorna.
"They're great masses of crumbling lava turning into soil.

Wait till we get farther on, then you'll see lava more in its raw stage.