DOWN FROM ETNA.

BY A RECENT TRAVELLER.

As we descended from the crater, the greater portion of our road lay over sulphur and ammoniac constantly streaming; and so hot, as at times to be felt painfully even through thick boots. The colours of this volcanic incrustation are either a dazzling white, or pale yellow, the surface soft and loose; yet the descent was easy and rapid, nor was the sulphureous warmth of the atmosphere unpleasant, after the cold through which we had passed. Remounting our mules at the Casa Inglese, we descended the valley of ashes by a shorter path; passing in sight of a shapeless mass of ruins called the Philosopher's Tower; formerly, according to vulgar tradition, the observatory of the philosopher Empedocles.

I was now able to observe the character of the mountain by daylight. The Regione Deserta-which, even in the descent, is not traversed in less than three hours-composed exclusively of tracts of sand and ashes, lapilli, scoria and countless torrents of lava, thrown up by different eruptions, is a scene whose aspect baffles description. The poetic conceptions of Dante and Milton have called up nothing more terrible to the visionary eye; and some of the finest effects in Martin's pictures were occasionally recalled to my memory by the aspects of this volcanic waste. We seem here to have passed out of the world where a beneficent Providence holds sway; and truly might the journey be allegorically compared to a passage through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

But, in descending, this gloom is to a degree dispelled by the magnificent and luxuriant prospect far below us; the whole lower region of Etna appearing like a richly

cultured and wooded plain, interspersed with a multitude of steep mounds-cones thrown up by various volcanic agitations; of which I counted, at one spot, as many as twenty-one within the compass of view. Almost every one of the various heights that constitute the Regione Deserta a chain of mountains, bears evidently the characteristics of a crater; and, in some instances, might be supposed to have only lately ceased burning. The one formed by the eruption of 1763 is very peculiar in its shape, being cloven into two lofty peaks, each with a regularly defined cavity like a bowl, part of whose inner sides, of a brownish-red tint, is distinguished from below.

As we descend lower, the first vegetation-save the hardy kind of lichen found much nearer the summitappears in the thickly-clustering tufts of a weed, locally called the erba di cento spine, growing in rounded clumps, and of a dull, reddish hue. Fern, of parched brown tint, covers the sand-beds at a lower level; and flocks of sheep, near the borders of the Regione Sylvosa, are the first living creatures seen. The forest-zone encircling the great mountain, which is traversed in about two hours, is a beautifully romantic, but a perfectly wild and solitary region, refreshing to the eye and feelings after the sterility and horror of the preceding. The wood is principally oak, not growing densely, but so detached as that almost each tree forms a separate picture, such as we admire in old English parks. In this zone, however, various other kinds flourish in different proportions.

It is strange to observe in a region thus wooded a soil in many parts entirely of sand and ashes, save under the immediate shade of the trees. But in the lower tracts grass as well as flowers is abundant; the anemone (of pale violet hue) being in profusion. There is something peculiarly friend-like and endearing in this lovely flower, when found at our feet after the ascent of the terrible mountain; it seems to welcome

us back to nature and joy. In their lower tracts especially, these forests are so picturesque and deliciciously umbrageous, that we might say Theocritus had taken from them the scenery to some of his Idylls. And, singularly beautiful is often the aspect of the extinct craters, rising like vast tumuli amid the trees: the sides of some of their cones overgrown with oak; others sterile, but entirely carpeted with red and yellow volcanic productions that present a brilliant play of colouring, looking from a distance like the alternations in shot-silk. Other craters found here are of totally different character, with little or no elevated external crust; but yawning at once from the surface of the earth; their cavity in some instances occupied by large trees or brushwood, in others remaining sterile, black, and sharply defined at the edges, with heaps of scoria and ashes around. These extinct craters, many of which I have looked into on different levels of Etna, are not generally of much depth; but sometimes so rugged, from blocks of lava lining their sides, that it is difficult to enter them.

After leaving the forests, we travel (though now in what is called the Regione Abitata) for nearly two hours more, over an extent of gloomy and awful lava beds. These are, from the eruption of 1669, apparently the most terrible ever known; whose fiery torrents almost surrounded Catania, and only stopped after flowing for a considerable distance into the sea.

Looking up the mountain, we perceive how this fearful stream has rolled down like a cataract, dividing itself into many branches that occupy the lower slopeshere almost forming a plain of some miles-in parallel lines, at times meeting, at times leaving a narrow slip of arid soil between. All is blight and desolation along the sides of these now condensed and blackened torrents; and I observed that lichen, and here and there scanty grasses, were all the spontaneous growth on this lava, even after the lapse of nearly two centuries.

I

Glancing back, however, towards the heights we have descended, the eye is charmed by a majestic variety of outlines and brilliancy of colouring; such as I have never seen equalled in nature. The many-tinted flowers and weeds, the ever-green, or variously shaded foliage; the lichen, or mosses that in some spots have spread a dark, purplish carpet over tracts of lava, produce this combination of colouring that so delightfully contrasts with the stern monotony of the upper regions. One feels, that if the summits of Etna be the seat of wrath and destruction, its base is clothed with loveliness, as though the genius of beneficence had succeeded to that of desolation.

Near Nicolosi rise the great cones called the Monti Rossi, thrown up in the before-mentioned eruption. These are properly a single elevation, cloven at the summit, the sides partially wooded, but principally containing a barren surface of ashes.

The environs of this little town, which forms, as it were, the gateway to the ascent of Etna, are almost one extent of sand; but cultivation, when attempted, does not appear unsuccessful, as I observed the peculiar vivid green of the vines growing on this

surface.

Before we had arrived at that lower level, I found the heat intense; and this contrast of atmosphere so affects one, after the bitter cold experienced in the heights, as to make what has been passed through previously, appear like a strange and awful dream.

WHAT IS HAPPINESS ?

HAPPINESS is nothing but that inward, sweet delight that will arise from the harmonious agreement between our will and God's will.

THE ALMOST DISCIPLE.

"He went away sorrowful:"-an undue love of wealth prevented the young man from following Christ. It often happens still, that some cherished passion, or sin, keeps the soul away from the Saviour. Thus are awakened sinners often lost.

The fact, that a man hesitates long before he gives up religion, and yields to sin with reluctance and sorrow, does not affect the consequences of yielding. One man rushes madly down a precipice, another passes over its verge slowly and trembling; there is no difference in their fall.

There are some who seem to be near the kingdom of God. But the world calls them. There is strife in their souls. Sin at length too often gains the victory. They leave the Saviour reluctantly, sorrowfully; but, they do leave Him.

It appears that some, while in the morning of life, take their final leave of their Saviour. There is no reason to suppose that the young man who went away sorrowful from Christ ever came to Him again. That meeting with Christ-that refusal to follow Him-was probably the turning point in his moral history. Undecided reader! mark you not the application to yourself?

Do I speak to one awakened to a sense of guilt and danger ?to one who feels that the Saviour is near? Do not turn away from Him. The grave may cover you before Jesus of Nazareth passes by again; or, your present rejection may become one of a train of moral influences which will render you "past feeling," and "twice dead."

C. T.