THE BIRTH OF A SICILIAN VOLCANO. 579 



which by a gradual ascent of ten miles ends in Nicolosi, whence 

 tourists start for the ascent of Etna. Passing beyond the city 

 limits, past the lava stream of 1669 on the left, through villages 

 and hamlets surrounded by vineyards and orange trees, we finally 

 not long after sunset drew up at the door of the Hotel d'Etna in 

 Nicolosi. 



It was Good Friday, and as we stepped out of our carriage 

 a festal, torchlit procession issued from a church near by, and 

 passed up a street parallel to ours amid blazing red lights and 

 the explosion of noisy fireworks, toward another church at the 

 upper end of the village. A gamiyi eagerly accosted us, gesticu- 

 lating and shouting in our ears, " Jesu Crista morte ! " and appeal- 

 ing to us to follow on with him. Hastily leaving our traveling 

 bags in the hotel, we walked up the street in the gathering gloom 

 and by a short cut entered the church just before the procession 

 reached the door. To the beat of muifled drums and amid glaring, 

 smoking torches entered a priest, followed \)j a company of men 

 bearing a rude image of the body of Christ stretched on a bier ; 

 then poured in a motley crowd of men, women, and children, each 

 wearing a crown of thorns, to be succeeded by a standing image, 

 life-size, of the Virgin dressed in black, and borne by women, 

 also in mourning garb. Not waiting to witness the final cere- 

 monies, we left the church resounding with the music of the brass 

 band, reeking with the lurid smoke of pitch-pine or tar torches, 

 -and betook ourselves to the hotel. 



It was a jovial company assembled in this wayside inn. Half 

 a dozen German teachers and physicians were making merry over 

 the wine of the country, and cordially invited us to ascend the 

 mountain with them the next day. But we had heard of the new 

 volcano, and had made our plans to visit that. At a late hour, 

 all the rooms having been taken by them, we slept on cots in the 

 dining room. 



The morning of the 20th was light and clear, and the un- 

 clouded summit of the volcano was like polished alabaster. 

 After an early breakfast the guide and myself, mounted on mules, 

 took the road for Monte Gemellaro. Leaving on our left the old 

 lava stream of 1669, which looked like an unused railway em- 

 bankment rising about twenty-five feet in height, we soon came 

 to the forked end of the stream, or sciarra, of 1886. To our left 

 towered the double-headed cone of Monte Rosso with its retinue 

 of monticles around its base. The vines were still in full leaf, 

 and the apple trees in blossom ; but we soon rode into a cooler 

 zone, where the vines had just begun to leaf out, and they formed 

 the only vegetation except clumps of yellow-flowered broom, with 

 copses of leafless, slender chestnuts. Over the reddish volcanic 

 .soil ran nimble lizards not the beautiful green ones of the 



