2 Ascent of Mt. Etna, February, 1832. 



t 



the city ; the latter catting it at right angles and running towards the 

 mountain from which it is named. As we turned the corner into this 

 street, it seemed to extend nearly the whole of the route which we 

 were to take, that is, to a distance of thirty miles and with a contin- 

 uous ascent, to the elevation of 10,000 feet. Its line of direction 

 cuts the mountain high up, but unfortunately a little to the south of 

 its apex. A slight deviation westerly would have presented the whole 

 rise of Etna, from its commencement midway through Etna Street, 

 up to the smoky crest of the crater, and terminated a long vista of 

 palaces with the sublimest object in the world. 



Sallying from the city by a cottage delightfully situated at the ex- 

 tremity of the street, we followed, for the first six miles, the new and 

 excellent carriage road, leading to Messina. We passed through a 

 toll-gate, and it struck me as the first I had seen out of my own coun- 

 try. Two or three villages skirted the first part of the way with 

 houses, and these with the fields and vineyards evinced a more thri- 

 ving and happy population than we had noticed elsewhere in Sicily. 

 Shortly after leaving the city, Abbate told us, we were passing over 

 the port of Ulysses. It had been completely filled up by lava at an 

 unknown period ; that of Catania, on the other hand, owes its for- 

 mation to the eruption of 1669. We dismounted and went a short 

 distance from the road, to see an extinct crater. It must be a very 

 ancient one; it presented the appearance of an irregular bowl, not 

 more than two rods in diameter at the brim and with a small jagged 

 orifice at the bottom : stones were dropped into this, and the sounds 

 indicated frequent collision with the sides of the cavity, and but a 

 trifling perpendicular descent. 



About 6 o'clock, we reached Nicolosi, after an up-hill ride of 

 twelve miles. The elevation, by the observations of Schow and 

 Gemmellaro, is 2128 Paris feet, or about 2360 English feet. The 

 evening air was rather keener than usual, but the fig, the orange, and 

 the pomegranate, were evidences of a general security from frost. 

 On the left of the village, towered to the height of 1000 feet, the 

 scorched and menacing Monti Rossi, or Red Mounts. The course 

 of the lava of 1669, can be distinctly seen, through the whole dis- 

 tance of twelve miles, from these two mountains, which it reared as 

 landmarks of its source, to the mole of Catania, where it drove back 

 the sea and forever bids it defiance. Its dark track, contrasting with 

 the smiling beauty and luxuriance every where close upon its sides, 

 brings fearfully to the imagination the horror and helpless dismay of 



