The noises of the festival had not ceased when I closed my letter at midnight, on Friday last.  I slept soundly through the night, but was awakened before sunrise by my Sicilian landlord.  “O, Excellenza! have you heard the Mountain?  He is going to break out again; may the holy Santa Agatha protect us!” It is rather ill-timed on the part of the Mountain, was my involuntary first thought, that he should choose for a new eruption precisely the centennial festival of the only Saint who is supposed to have any power over him.  It shows a disregard of female influence not at all suited to the present day, and I scarcely believe that he seriously means it.  Next came along the jabbering landlady:  “I don’t like his looks.  It was just so the last time.  Come, Excellenza, you can see him from the back terrace.”  The sun was not yet risen, but the east was bright with his coming, and there was not a cloud in the sky.  All the features of Etna were sharply sculptured in the clear air.  From the topmost cone, a thick stream of white smoke was slowly puffed out at short intervals, and rolled lazily down the eastern side.  It had a heavy, languid character, and I should have thought nothing of the appearance but for the alarm of my hosts.  It was like the slow fire of Earth’s incense, burning on that grand mountain altar.

I hurried off to the Post Office, to await the arrival of the diligence from Palermo.  The office is in the Strada Etnea, the main street of Catania, which runs straight through the city, from the sea to the base of the mountain, whose peak closes the long vista.  The diligence was an hour later than usual, and I passed the time in watching the smoke which continued to increase in volume, and was mingled, from time to time, with jets of inky blackness.  The postilion said he had seen fires and heard loud noises during the night.  According to his account, the disturbances commenced about midnight.  I could not but envy my friend Caesar, who was probably at that moment on the summit, looking down into the seething fires of the crater.

At last, we rolled out of Catania.  There were in the diligence, besides myself, two men and a woman, Sicilians of the secondary class.  The road followed the shore, over rugged tracts of lava, the different epochs of which could be distinctly traced in the character of the vegetation.  The last great flow (of 1679) stood piled in long ridges of terrible sterility, barely allowing the aloe and cactus to take root in the hollows between.  The older deposits were sufficiently decomposed to nourish the olive and vine; but even here, the orchards were studded with pyramids of the harder fragments, which are laboriously collected by the husbandmen.  In the few favored spots which have been untouched for so many ages that a tolerable depth of soil has accumulated, the vegetation has all the richness and brilliancy of tropical lands.  The palm, orange, and pomegranate thrive luxuriantly, and the vines almost break under their heavy clusters.