DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.959#0341
1873] DANGER FROM FIRE. 275
instance, found in numbers in the Acropolis of Athens,
and they appear to have been used up to a very late
period. A rude pre-historic people could by no means
have made the beautiful terra-cottas which are found here
immediately below the ruins of the Greek colony, and still
less could they have manufactured the splendid pottery
which shows such a high degree of artistic taste, and which
I meet with here at a great depth.
The life in this wilderness is not without danger, and
last night, for instance, my wife and I and the foreman
Photidas had the narrowest escape of being burnt alive.
In the bedroom on the north side of the wooden house
which we are inhabiting, we had had a small fireplace
made, and, owing to the terrible cold which has again set in
during the last six days, we have lighted a fire in it daily.
But the stones of the fireplace rest merely upon the boards
of the floor, and, whether it was owing to a crevice in the
cement joining the stones, or by some other means, the
floor took fire, and when I accidentally awoke this morning
at 3 o'clock, it was burning over a space of two yards long
by a yard broad. The room was filled with dense smoke,
and the north wall was just beginning to catch fire; a few
seconds would have sufficed to burn a hole into it, and
the whole house would then have been in flames in less
than a minute, for a fearful north wind was blowing from
that side. In my fright I did not lose my presence of
tfind. I poured the contents of a bath upon the burning
north wall, and thus in a moment stopped the fire in that
direction. Our cries awoke Photidas, who was asleep in the
adjoining room, and he called the other foremen from the
stone house to our assistance. In the greatest haste they
fetched hammers, iron levers and pickaxes; the floor was
"token up, torn to pieces, and quantities of damp earth
thrown upon it, for we had no water. But, as the lower beams
Were burning in many places, a quarter of an hour elapsed
before we got the fire under and all danger was at an end.
t 2
instance, found in numbers in the Acropolis of Athens,
and they appear to have been used up to a very late
period. A rude pre-historic people could by no means
have made the beautiful terra-cottas which are found here
immediately below the ruins of the Greek colony, and still
less could they have manufactured the splendid pottery
which shows such a high degree of artistic taste, and which
I meet with here at a great depth.
The life in this wilderness is not without danger, and
last night, for instance, my wife and I and the foreman
Photidas had the narrowest escape of being burnt alive.
In the bedroom on the north side of the wooden house
which we are inhabiting, we had had a small fireplace
made, and, owing to the terrible cold which has again set in
during the last six days, we have lighted a fire in it daily.
But the stones of the fireplace rest merely upon the boards
of the floor, and, whether it was owing to a crevice in the
cement joining the stones, or by some other means, the
floor took fire, and when I accidentally awoke this morning
at 3 o'clock, it was burning over a space of two yards long
by a yard broad. The room was filled with dense smoke,
and the north wall was just beginning to catch fire; a few
seconds would have sufficed to burn a hole into it, and
the whole house would then have been in flames in less
than a minute, for a fearful north wind was blowing from
that side. In my fright I did not lose my presence of
tfind. I poured the contents of a bath upon the burning
north wall, and thus in a moment stopped the fire in that
direction. Our cries awoke Photidas, who was asleep in the
adjoining room, and he called the other foremen from the
stone house to our assistance. In the greatest haste they
fetched hammers, iron levers and pickaxes; the floor was
"token up, torn to pieces, and quantities of damp earth
thrown upon it, for we had no water. But, as the lower beams
Were burning in many places, a quarter of an hour elapsed
before we got the fire under and all danger was at an end.
t 2