THE CRATER. 
45 
region. According to Senor Gemmellaro, it was built by bis 
father, the distinguished naturalist, in 1810, when the En¬ 
glish army occupied Sicily. It was originally intended that 
it should have attached to it an observatory, with all the in¬ 
struments necessary for determining the temperature and ob¬ 
serving the volcanic phenomena of Mount Etna ; but, owing 
to the want of suitable encouragement, this design was aban¬ 
doned. For many years past it has been repaired from time 
to time by Senor Gemmellaro entirely at his own expense. 
The dawn of day began to lighten up the eastern horizon 
as we sallied forth, with our staffs and guide, from the solitary 
walls of the old Casa. All was black and craggy under foot, 
and the sharp gusts of wind moaned gloomily against the 
rugged masses of lava as we wound our way among them. 
Neither path nor trace was perceptible to us now, for the 
earth was covered with beds of dark lava ; yet onward strode 
Pedro, with the same sure and steady tread, looking neither 
to the right nor the left, and never for a moment stopping to 
search for the path. How many times he had gone up that 
mountain, by day and by night, when it was covered with 
snow and when it was wrapt in darkness, in sunshine and 
storm, from youth to the sere of manhood, not even himself 
could tell. A hard life it was at best; up and down those 
dreary heights for more than twenty years; a crust of bread 
or a bone now and then from some tender-hearted tourist to 
keep his spirits up, and a good many sunrises and sunsets to 
feed his imagination. That Pedro was a man of imagination 
was attested by the number of charms he wore to keep away 
the evil spirits that infest these lonely mountains, and if he 
had thoughts at all, what strange thoughts they must have 
been ! His whole world lay between San Nicolosi and the 
crater—-a very strange world in itself; a world of burnt earth, 
of ashes, and lava, and sulphur, and smoke, of wondrous 
fires and earthquakes past, and eternal ruin and desolation in 
the future. What to others was the great event of a life was 
an every-day affair to Pedro; in his heels he carried more 
practical knowledge of Etna than all the learned men of 
Europe carried in their heads. God speed that grim and 
