42 
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY. 
quantity of smoke now and then—didn’t do a bad job when 
it buried all those beggars of Romans and Saracens, to say 
nothing of the number of rascally Sicilians it has since cover¬ 
ed up. Nonsense—all fudge !” 
In about three hours and a half from San Nicolosi we 
reached an old tree lying in a sheltered ravine, where the 
guides lit a fire and fed the mules. A very marked differ¬ 
ence was perceptible in the atmosphere at this elevation; the 
cold was penetrating, though not apparently of great intensity. 
It was with difficulty we could keep our feet and hands warm, 
and maintain a healthy circulation of the blood; but, after 
resting an hour or two, we pushed on. 
From the oak forest we emerged into a region of scoria and 
lava, abounding in narrow and difficult passes, and of the 
wildest and most desolate aspect. The moon, which had 
thus far befriended us, now disappeared, and left us in almost 
utter darkness. It was surprising how the guides adhered to 
the path over the rough beds of lava; often, as we thought, 
depending altogether upon instinct; in many places there ap¬ 
peared to be not the slightest trace of a path. Huge masses 
of lava, over which we stumbled, deep gulches, and yawning 
precipices, all enveloped in gloom, threatened each moment 
to bring us up with a sudden check; but we always contrived 
to keep on, winding round them, and into them, and through 
them, after the stalwart figure of old Pedro, who took the 
lead and never for an instant slackened his pace. How that 
man kept breath enough in his body to sustain life during so 
many years of hard climbing, I could never divine ; for, ac¬ 
customed as I was to exercise, I must say it made me puff 
not a little to keep pace with him for one night. The high¬ 
est bluffs, the roughest passes, the deepest chasms were all 
the same to old Pedro; up he rose and down he went, some¬ 
times looming against the sky like a gigantic wizard of the 
mountain in his shaggy capote, sometimes sinking with rapid 
and steady strides into unfathomable depths; now grasping 
the scraggy points of lava and lifting himself out of myster¬ 
ious pits; now scrambling over precipices of scoria like a 
monstrous bear ; a moment after, astride of his mule, on some 
