About six miles higher up commences the Nemerosa region, which, like a beautiful green girdle, encircles the mountain; it abounds with ancient hillocks, and lava of different periods, and is almost covered with frowning woods of oak, holm, beech and pines, on the more elevated points.

After enjoying for some time this stupendous and enchanting treat, we kept torturing and progressing, lost in pleasing reveries caused by the fairy scene.

Halted at the upper boundary of the forest region, to refresh our mules, and exchange our light clothing for garments of a warmer texture, as the wind now blew cool and somewhat chilly; for the temperature of this spot was about 50 deg., while that of Catania, which we had only left a few hours ago, was about 84 deg.  Fahr.

The road, on leaving our resting-place, became tedious and cheerless; hardly any vegetation was discoverable, and still wilder regions appeared above us.  The path now lay over masses of rough lava; so much so, that at times it became necessary to dismount and actually drag our jaded animals over the rugged precipices which obstructed our progress:  the intricacy of the path required us to follow one another very closely, that we might not lose the track, which became so tortuous in its course, as would puzzle any one but a muleteer accustomed to the road to find the clue of this volcanic labyrinth in the darkness of night.

After much anxious travelling over wastes of cinders and black sand, we seemed to be approaching near the wished-for summit; when, about two o’clock, A.M., the moon, now shorn of her beams, queen like, arose behind the bifurcated summit of Etna; her cheering light was very grateful to us in this wild spot.  The awful cone of the mountain pillowed against the heavens, and emitting clouds of silvery white smoke from its burning crater, had a grand effect at this solemn hour of the night.

At three o’clock, arrived at the Casa Inglese, a rude hut built by the English troops when stationed in Sicily, during the late war.  Here it became again necessary to halt a little to put on some extra clothing.  As soon as this was accomplished, the signal for the ascent was made by the guides giving each person of the party a long staff, to assist him in clambering the steeps, as the mules could not proceed any further, owing to the nature and fatigue of the ascent.  The first portion of the road lay over large broken masses of lava, most wearisome to scramble over.  On approaching nearer the apex, the path was over cinders, fine black sand, and scoria.  In wading through this compound the ascent became so difficult and fatiguing, that we were all under the necessity of reposing every twenty or thirty yards, tormented by the sulphureous vapour, which rendered respiration painful, and was even less supportable than the abruptness of the mountain path!