G38 ' THE UNIVERSE. 



we overlook heaven and ocean. Behind ns the growhngs 

 of the thunder reverberate at the bottom of the immense 

 gulf, according to ancient theogony the entrance to the 

 empire of Pluto, but which the rustic mountaineer only 

 knows as the Devil's House (Casa di Diavolo). Standing on 

 cinders which burned my feet, and the sulphureous vapours 

 of which almost suffocated me, the most splendid spectacle 

 in creation expanded itself before my eyes. The dawn 

 began to appear, and its pale light gradually extinguished 

 the wavering glimmer of the stars. Then soon after, the 

 sun appearing in all the pomp of the east, issued from his 

 opal bed, his forehead bound with purple and gold.^ 



From this prodigious elevation the eye embraces all the 

 circumference of Trinacria, stretching like a warm and 

 luminous cincture along the blue waves which bathe its 

 shores, its advanced promontories reminding one of the 

 three legs which symbolized Sicily on ancient medals. In 

 the distance the waves of the Ionian Sea blend with the 

 azure of heaven; and on the other hand the mountains of 

 Calabria, Avith their jagged outlines, bound the pan- 

 orama with inexi^ressible magnificence; while Malta ap- 

 pears like a dim point upon the confines of a horizon 

 300 leagues in circumference. 



Near Sicily rise from the middle of the sea the Cyclo- 

 pean Kocks, like so many black projections contrasting Avith 

 the brilliant shore. Vestiges of the most terrible commotion 

 of the elements, their basaltic masses, produced amid the 



^ [In addition to tliis tine coloui'ing of the crater itself is in most of these views 

 a magnificent siglit. The hues include every variety of yellow, passing into the 

 piu-est white on one side, and deep orange or hrown on the other. Occasionally 

 we find vermilion and other reds. "The brilliancy of these colours," says Pro- 

 fessor Ansted, " is such that no pencil could imitate it, and the appearance can 

 onlj' be compared to the hues of the clouds during an autumn sunset in a warm 

 climate. These bright tints are almost entirely due to delicjuescent salts of am- 

 monia, soda, and iron. — Tr.] 



