rich vegetation. The freshness of the air, the beauty and picturesque
situations of the houses surrounded by lofty and fine trees, the
over-teeming fertility of the soil, and the laughing fields, where
golden Ceres still lingers, unwilling to quit her favourite abode,
intersected by courses of lava, as yet unproductive, make this view
one of the most beautiful and interesting that can be imagined. These
mighty streams of once liquid fire, extending in many places ten miles
in length, by two or three in breadth, fill the mind with horror and
astonishment: that such wondrous masses, consisting of earths, stones,
and minerals, fused and mixed, could be driven forth in one wild
current from the mountain, makes us pause, and confounds any attempt
to reason on the phenomena.--And, although the lava for many centuries
lays waste the superincumbent land, yet, after a certain, but very
long period, it is brought by human industry into such a state as to
become the richest soil for cultivation: but when we reflect on
the necessity of some ages to effect this wished-for state of
decomposition, we bewilder the mind without arriving at any certain
conclusion. When this process is duly effected, the cactus opuntia, or
prickly pear, is planted, which hastens the desired event, and has the
power to break up the lava, and render it fit for productive purposes.
Five miles from Trecastagne is Nicolosi, a small village which has
often suffered from the fire-vomiting mountain. Here we supped,
and baited the mules for two hours. Nicolosi, according to Signor
Gemmellero, a Sicilian physician, long resident at Catania, is two
thousand one hundred and twenty-eight feet above the level of the sea,
and its mean temperature 64° Fahr.

From hence, to an almost interminable extent, there is a most superb
view of the surrounding country; nothing can be more varied, grand,
and sublime; every spot spared by the all-devastating lavas, is highly