p. 13 | G. A. IRWIN by George A. Irwin

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 25, 1907

G. A. IRWIN

By George A. Irwin

From Port Said to Naples, Italy

G. A. IRWIN

In addition to the tonnage and passenger dues, each vessel passing through the canal at night must pay the charges of an electric search-light, supplied by the canal company, of sufficient power to light the channel for 4,100 feet ahead and a circular area around the ship of 683 feet. The regulations of the company are printed in both French and English, and cover every little detail and

possible contingency that might arise during the transit of a vessel through the canal, all of which are arbitrary and must be complied with. As expensive as the passage is, it is much cheaper for vessels going from Great Britain and other European countries to Australia, India, China, and the East Indies than to sail around the continent of Africa. The traffic through the canal has become so great that there is strong talk of constructing another to run parallel with the present one.

The country traversed by the Suez Canal is barren and desolate in the extreme. But this section about the Red Sea is of great interest to students of the Bible, for it was here that the Israelites crossed through the deep, with mighty walls of water on either side, on foot from Egypt to Arabia, on their way to the promised land. And across these same waters in the future will pass ships to form that mighty horde to participate in the last great battle of this earth's history, which will be fought in the same country toward which the Israelites journeyed centuries before. Also this country which has and will witness these scenes, will be within the radius of the New Jerusalem when it rests upon the earth.

Tuesday morning, April 23, we reached Port Said, which is located on the Egyptian side at the Mediterranean entrance to the Suez Canal. Port Said is a part of the Ottoman empire's possessions in Egypt. Its native population consists of Turks, Arabians, Greeks, Armenians, Egyptians, and Persians. The place has grown rapidly in the last few years, and is now one of the principal seaports of the Mediterranean. The harbor is constantly being enlarged, and better accommodations provided for vessels. Quite a large number of Europeans are engaged in business in the town. As yet we have no workers in the place, nor is there a Sabbath-keeper to my knowledge. There is a company of believers in Alexandria, one hundred and sixty miles to the west, and a few in Cairo, one hundred miles south, and it is to be hoped that in the near future a worker can be located in this important seaport.

We left Port Said at 2:30 P. M. the same day, and steamed out into the Mediterranean in the face of a strong and cold north wind. This sudden change from tropical heat to frost-laden air was accounted for the second morning following, when we came in sight of the island of Crete, and saw the tops of the mountains covered with snow. Crete is an island in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea, five hundred miles northwest of Port Said and one hundred and fifty miles southeast of Greece. The island is one hundred and fifty miles long by an average width of twenty-five miles. It is under the government of Turkey in Europe. The truth in the days of the apostles had many adherents on the island.

While passing through the Red Sea, and in sight of the places in the Mediterranean mentioned there, I read and reread the fourteenth chapter of Exodus and the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth chapters of the book of Acts; but after all it was difficult to make myself believe that I was really passing over the same waters, and seeing with my own eyes the countries and towns mentioned in this narrative. My only object in writing as much as I have about these places is that some who read may get a burden to go and take to these people the third angel's message, which is the completion of God's eternal purpose and plan, of which the former-mentioned events were a part.

I can not pass by the island of Sicily without mentioning the strange sight of an active fiery mountain, or volcano, covered with snow. Mt. Etna, one of the world's most noted volcanoes, is on the island of Sicily in plain sight from the decks of vessels passing through the Messina Strait. When we passed by, April 26, it was covered with snow up to the crater, from which was issuing volumes of white smoke or steam. Stromboli, a high, cone-shaped island located a few miles north of Sicily, is another active and noted volcano of this region.

On Sabbath morning, April 27, at four o'clock, we reached Naples in fairly good condition, after a voyage through tropical heat of twenty-five days. Having planned to leave the vessel here and go overland through Italy to Gland, I had written Brother Everson to meet me in Naples, to act as an interpreter and guide while visiting Pompeii and Vesuvius. My surprise can be better imagined than described in words when, just as the bell rang for breakfast, I heard some one call my name, and looking over the side of the vessel, I saw Brother Everson and my wife in a small boat below. Without waiting for breakfast, or even to say good-by to the acquaintances I had made on the boat, I hastened below to greet them, and learn how my wife came to be there. I soon learned that Sister Prescott and son and Sister Weller were in the city, and had come on the same boat, my wife coming as a companion for Sister Weller. Mrs. Prescott had come to join her husband, who had arrived from China two weeks before. After reaching our stopping-place in the city, which was on a street fronting on the Bay of Naples, we spent the Sabbath quietly in our rooms, thanking our Heavenly Father that he had spared all our lives and brought us together again. While waiting for Brother Thompson, who was expected to arrive from Egypt on Monday morning, we spent the time in writing and in visiting the museum and other places of interest in the city. Brother Thompson arrived as expected, early on Monday morning, April 29, and after disposing of his luggage, he and Brother Everson joined the other members of our party at the ruins of Pompeii.

We spent the entire day looking over that portion of this fateful city that has been exhumed, going through the principal public buildings and most noted private dwellings in an effort to learn all we could of the habits and customs of the people of that wicked metropolis. The city was located near the base of Mount Vesuvius. In the year A. D. 63, a severe earthquake destroyed a portion of the city. Sixteen years later—A. D. 79—the first recorded outbreak of Vesuvius took place, from which Pompeii was buried under twenty feet of ashes, and Herculaneum under a torrent of mud from eighty to one hundred feet deep. Previous to that year, Mount Vesuvius was not thought to be a volcano. But since then it has broken forth with violence sixty times, and many more times with less destructiveness. In 472 its ashes fell as far away as Constantinople. In 1538 Mount Nuova was lifted in two days to the height of four hundred and thirteen feet, with a girth of eight thousand. Ninety-three years later, lava and boiling water flooded the villages at its foot, and destroyed eighteen thousand lives. In 1779, just seventeen hundred years after the first eruption, Mount Vesuvius, roaring like a giant fiend, belched forth fire and smoke, lava, red-hot stones and ashes, with occasional tongues of flame leaping upward for hundreds of feet. Fifteen years later there was a violent eruption; again in 1822, and in 1855. In 1865 began a series of convulsions, of which the one in 1906 was the latest.