Page 2 from a nursing sister's diary

Mitchell, Sheila Macbeth, 1916, Document

Category

Library Item

Item no

41412

Title

Page from a nursing sister's diary - The Last Voyage in H.M.H.S "Britannic"

Description

went on shore. Eight of us hired two cars and a guide for the day. The guide was a good one, but, those cars - the limit!
Two horrors, with tyres full of holes. Each driver had a boy with him, not only to occupy the Devil's seat, (In Italy & Malta too, the people are very superstitious, and will not drive with an empty seat beside them, as they think that the Devil will occupy it) but to jump out every few hundred yards to start the engine or pick up the nuts which are shed over the road. Unfortunately, when one car broke down the other was sure to do likewise at no great distance. Still, it was great fun - except when the drivers tried to race each other on roads which were full of ruts about a foot deep.

We went to Solfatara or "Little Vesuvius", which is reached by a road running close to the sea round two bays. The views were lovely and I wished I were walking and had more time to see things.

The Crater is a large one, and it is just as if the top of a large mountain had fallen in to form a huge lime pit. The guide took us over this (in the safe places) to show us some holes where the ground had caved in and exposed the boiling stream which flows from three to four feet under the entire surface. The holes are crusted with yellow sulphur crystals. It is a wonderful place and well worth going to.

From the Crater we went past the old amphitheatre to Pozzvoli, where we went into the palace which Nero had cut into the cliff - like a sort of catacomb. Close to the Palace was his Natural Turkish Bath. I wish the guide had warned us before we went in - for although we ran all the way, we only just got out before we were quite melted away!
Some of the M.O.'s were outside and when they saw us they refused to go in themselves - the cowards!

About ten minutes journey further down the road, was an old Grecian Temple and, thinking we might never get another chance of seeing one, we went there instead of to lunch. We did not guess that within a week, we should

Artist / maker

Mitchell, Sheila Macbeth

Date

1916

Size

35.5 x 26.5 cm

Type

Document

Reproduced by kind permission of the family of Sheila Macbeth Mitchell

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