44 
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY. 
in the shaggy capote, I stretched myself on a piece of plank, 
and looking into the crackling pile, around which sat the 
guides and muleteers, moralized on the vaulting ambition of 
man which induces him to cross stormy seas and climb vol¬ 
canic mountains. Said I to myself (for the Englishman was 
lost in a cloud of smoke on the other side), Here you are, at 
three o’clock in the morning, ten thousand feet above the 
level of the sea, cold as a lump of ice, choking with smoke, 
with scarce a shoe on your feet or a coat on your back; tossed 
and tumbled about till you hardly know what language you 
talk or where you belong ; now up on the top of Mount Etna 
to see the sun rise, and next to take a peep into the valley of 
Jehosaphat. And all for what ? Quein sabe , as the Span¬ 
iards say. 
The Casa degV Inglesa is a small stone building, con¬ 
structed in the rudest manner, for the temporary accommoda¬ 
tion of travelers on the way to the crater. It is ten thousand 
feet above the level of the sea, and is of course uninhabited, 
being merely a place of shelter, without water or other ac¬ 
commodations by which life could be sustained m that remote 
CASA DEGL’ INGLESA. 
