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CHAPTER XVI.

PADULA TO MOLITERNO, BY THE PASS OF ARENA BIANCA AND LAGOMAOURI.




I left my kind hosts of the Certosa at early dawn, on the 16th February, to pass still further south in the valley, and ascending over the pass of Oredone, or Arena Bianca, to reach Moliterno, in another valley to the south-east.

Approaching Sassano, a town on the west side of the valley, four miles from Certosa, I was enabled to see with the telescope that it had suffered but little, as was also the case with St. Giacomo, to the west of it. One building, partly ruined, and above the level of others, I could see distinctly, and by the fortuitous circumstance of the light from the sun reflected from its window-panes, whose azimuth I observed, was enabled to calculate approximately the axial line of building, and to infer the direction of the fractures and of the shock there. It turned out to be 137° E. of north. I cannot lay much stress on an observation so made. The muleteers, who knew the place well, said the people of it believed the great shock to have been from north to south, and that the same was the case with Buonabitacola, a small village at the same side, but further south. I passed near the latter, and the muleteers pointed out, where some large fissures had been produced in the